New Delhi: Central government has set up 24 X 7 control room for Real-time Monitoring of the alerts generated by Forest Survey of India (FSI) to contain 48 Forest Fire spots in Goa on Saturday.
The control room will share the exact geo-coordinates and maps of fire locations to the field functionaries on real-time basis so that they will immediately attend to the fires.
The Environment Ministry said, an inquiry has been ordered to ascertain reasons for Fire at each locatio and there is no major losses to floral and faunal diversity reported as yet.
The decision was taken after sporadic fires have been reported and detected in various areas of Goa including forests, private areas, communidade lands, plantations, revenue lands since March 05.
So far the Goa has witnessed 48 fire related incidents in the last 5 days. In view of the fire incidents, all concerned officials have been placed on high alert and instructions are being given to them
In a statement the Environment Ministry said that “the Forest Department Goa in close co-ordination and in tandem with the District Collectors of (North), the (South), SP (North), SP (South) and other line departments like Directorate of Fire and Emergency Services, has been addressing the local occurrences of fires on topmost priority”
To check impacted fire, the Ministry has divided the area into sectors and duties have been assigned to DCF and ACF level officers to immediately attend to the fires, for intensive management of forest fires in close coordination with line departments.
“Joint teams, in co-ordination with District Collector (North)/(South), Police Department, District Disaster Management Authority, Directorate of Fire and Emergency Services, local community, including PRI are deployed on field for immediate management of the fire incidences on war-footing” it said in a statement. “More than 750 people are on the field to attend to the fire incidences on war-footing” it informed.
To generate awareness on Forest Fires amongst the public, all the preventive and control measures in the form of Dos and Don’ts are being disseminated. All the concerned DCFs have been directed to conduct detailed enquiry into each of the fire incidences which have occurred since 05 March.
Two helicopters of Indian Air Force and Indian Navy are continuously carrying out regular aerial recce of the forest areas to ascertain the extent of fire across the state.
As per the reports received from the field, from March 5 to 10 March, 48 fire-spots have been detected and attended to by the field executives in close co-ordination with line departments and local public, including PRIs.
As of now 7 number of fires are reported to be active. “More than 500 number of staff and others, including manpower from other Departments, Fire and Emergency services and PRIs are deployed and 41 number of fires have already been doused” said the Ministry.
