Forest fire near CISF office, ammunition store in Chamoli contained after 3 days

Dehradun: Forest fires that had been raging for three days on Ram Parvat under Haat van panchayat of Chamoli district and had come dangerously close to a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) office and an ammunition store of Hindustan Construction Company, was contained in the early hours of Tuesday.Forest officials said the blaze gutted around 4–5 hectares of forest in the Haat van panchayat area on Monday. CISF personnel initially attempted to control the flames using fire extinguishers before a fire brigade team from Gopeshwar reached the spot and prevented the fire from spreading towards the structures."The fire was contained around 1.30am. A team of more than 12 people was deployed to douse the flames," said Sarvesh Dubey, divisional forest officer of the Kedarnath wildlife forest division.Villagers said the fire began on Saturday evening in a small patch of forest on Ram Parvat, opposite Pipalkoti town, and gradually spread. High-velocity winds and the difficult mountainous terrain hampered efforts to control the blaze. Firefighters used water jets and created fire lines to stop the flames from advancing further, said officials.However, residents said large parts of the forested hill continued to burn, causing extensive damage to forests. "The fire started on Saturday and kept burning for hours till Tuesday morning. A large part was gutted in the fire.The area lies close to Rudranath, which forms the buffer of Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary," said Narendra Pokhriyal, a resident of Haat village.Uttarakhand forest department data shows that the state has recorded 33 forest fire incidents since the start of the summer wildfire season on Feb 15, resulting in the loss of about 19 hectares of forest area so far. To curb such incidents, the state has purchased nearly 5,500 tons of chir pine needles from self-help groups engaged by forest department in clearing forest floors.