To Mitigate Damage by Forest Fires Cut Down Response Time

Last Updated on May 20, 2018 by Bharat Saini

Forest fires are a global challenge. Sporadic and widespread forest fires happen during summer season in the dry Western Ghats, especially in the Theni and Palani hills. Recently 39 trekkers, on their way back on expedition from Kurangani to Bodi in the Western Ghats were trapped in a raging forest fire of March 11, 2018 that broke out deep in Kurangani hills reserve near Theni District in Tamil Nadu, of which 10 trekkers died. Rescue operations were conducted by Indian Air force. On being trapped in raging fires the danger is asphyxiation, since a vast quantity of smoke is generated, and the lack of oxygen in the immediate vicinity of tall flames can cause breathlessness. Once a person loses consciousness due to asphyxiation, the danger of being burnt alive becomes real. Dehydration is also an issue when fighting flames more than a metre high. This brings into focus forest fires in India.

NASA’s MODIS and VIIRS Satellites detect a fire anywhere in the World, Forest Survey of India (FSI) analyses the data by overlaying the digitised boundaries of forest areas to pinpoint the location to the exact forest compartment.  The FSI relays news of the fire to the concerned State, so that the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) in charge of the forest where the fire is raging is informed. The time lapse between spotting the fire and the news reaching the DFO has now been reduced to about two hours. Usually, there is a master fire control room which is informed and which sends firefighters from local fire crew stations to fight the blaze.

MODIS, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer is a key instrument aboard Terra and Aqua satellites that orbit around the Earth and are viewing the entire Earth’s surface, acquiring data to improve our understanding of global dynamics and processes occurring on the land, in the oceans, and in the lower atmosphere. MODIS is playing a vital role in the development of validated, global, interactive Earth system models able to predict global change accurately enough to assist policy makers in making sound decisions concerning the protection of our environment.

VIIRS, Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite is a scanning radiometer that collects visible and infrared imagery and radiometric measurements of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and oceans. VIIRS data is used to measure cloud and aerosol properties, ocean color, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion and temperature, fires, and Earth’s albedo. Climatologists use VIIRS data to improve our understanding of global climate change. VIIRS extends and improves upon a series of measurements initiated by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).

Fire can be controlled if combustibles are removed or burnt under supervision, a system of controlled burning of undergrowth in safe seasons say during winters, so that by summers there would be nothing left to burn. To control and handle Forest are efficiently the approaches are:

• Technological, where Helicopters or ground-based personnel spray fire retardant chemicals, or pump water to fight the blaze. These are expensive methods and make sense when one is protecting a human community.
• Then it is to contain the fire in compartments bordered by natural barriers such as streams, roads, ridges, and fire lines along hillsides or across plains. A fire line is a line through a forest which has been cleared of all vegetation. The width depends on the type of forest being protected. Once the blaze has burnt out all combustibles in the affected compartment, it fizzles out and the neighboring compartments are saved.
• Next approach is to set a counter fire, so that when a fire is unapproachable for humans, a line is cleared of combustibles and manned. One waits until the wildfire is near enough to be sucking oxygen towards it, and then all the people manning the line set fire to the line simultaneously. The counter fire rushes towards the wildfire, leaving a stretch of burnt ground. As soon as the two fires meet, the blaze is extinguished.
• The other approach, which is the most practical and most widely used, is to have enough people with leafy green boughs to beat the fire out. This is practised in combination with fire lines and counter fires.

Increasing the field staff of Forest Departments by discontinuing the claimed forest plantations would help control forest fires, which in turn would help rejuvenation of fire-stressed forest ecosystems. This would help indigenous forests grow back. Communication and response time should be cut down to mitigate the damage caused by forest fires.