Fire destroys 270 acres of wheat crop at 2 Pilibhit villages

PILIBHIT

: A day after a fire destroyed around 400 acres of standing wheat crop at Nivad Ainthpur village in Pilibhit’s Amaria tehsil, another fire broke out at two villages in

Puranpur tehsil

on Sunday afternoon, causing the destruction of wheat crop in an area totaling over 270 acres.


Sub divisional magistrate Chandra Bhan Singh has sent a team of police and revenue personnel to the two spots to assess the damage. The fire tenders reached the affected sites after the inferno had ravaged the crops. The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained.

According to a preliminary assessment, around 50 farmers of Khaipur, a part of Tandola village panchayat, completely lost their standing wheat crop in an area spanning 250 acres. One Zafar Khan suffered the maximum loss with the fire destroying 50 acres of his cropped area.

Aslam Khan, son of Tandola gram pradhan Munni Begum, and pradhan of adjacent Sherpur village Riazat Noor told TOI that the fire broke out around 2.30 pm. A mini fire tender that was not equipped with a water storage tank reached the spot after 4.30 pm. By that time, villagers had controlled the fire.

Noor said farmers deployed a dozen tractors with cultivators to pulverside a 25-foot wide stretch of crops in the wheat fields to prevent the fire from spreading.

According to SDM Chandra Bhan Singh, there were additional reports of damage to over 20 acres of standing wheat crop due to another fire at Haripur village.

Aslam Khan said farmers of Tandola and Khairpur were angry at the delay in arrival of the fire tender. Faced with complete destruction of their crops, some affected marginal farmers even attempted to commit suicide but were saved by the mob, he added.