In the past few weeks we (at Farmers for Forests) have been witnessing a lot of forest fires in the areas where we work (Raigad and Gadchiroli). It’s pretty devastating to watch and we’re looking at ways of addressing the problem for next year’s fire season (March - May 2022), since it’s probably too late to do anything meaningful this year.
Rough estimates are that nearly 5-15% of the forest in our work areas is destroyed every year because of these fires. Some background on the situation from having some preliminary conversations in the communities and with forest department officials:
Most of these fires are not scientifically planned fires done for the purposes of forest management and to increase growth of new trees and vegetation
Most of the fires have anthropogenic causes (either intentional or unintentional)
Intentional causes include better harvest for tendu patta leaves, ability to see mahua flowers easily on the burned forest flower, land clearance for agriculture, game meat hunting, etc
Unintentional causes include smoking, cooking, etc
Detection of the fires is usually not a problem - the forest department has a remote sensing mechanism in place to do this and communities often know where exactly their forests are burning - putting out the fires has been problematic
Communities and the forest department work to put these fires out but often (1) the scale of the fires becomes too large quickly (2) the fires are in hard to reach places (like the top of hills, remote jungle areas or places where the terrain impedes easy access) (3) they lack the necessary infrastructure to be able to do this as effectively as they would like
Give this situation, we are:
Hoping to connect with someone who has experience in forest fire management and prevention
Hoping to crowd source solutions for what can be done in conjunction with forest dependant communities to reduce fire related forest loss in the next season. Some preliminary ideas we’re working on developing and need help with are (1) alternative harvesting techniques for tendu patta and mahua (2) collection of forest litter or ways to speed up forest litter decomposition (through addition of microbial cultures or other ways?)
If anyone has any other ideas or can connect us with someone they know working in this area - we’d be tremendously grateful! Thanks for reading!
We have had the same issues around at the Tamarind Valley Collective farm, and now in the forest around the Rainmatter farm. At TVC we’ve created fire-lines before this season every year - it’s a lot of effort. Have reached out to a few folks for solutions and ideas.
In few areas we have used local community who look after forest. Like establishing Eco development society whose members can regularly monitor forest areas and help in controlling forest fire.
Forest fires are primarily social issues. Lighting fires in forest is done for host of purposes.I have worked here with forest department and forest fringe villagers for about three years on ground. It’s three pronged approach.
1)It is lack of awareness or sensitivity to negative effects of forest fires is main cause. To address this we do a host of outreach and awareness programs like educative posters about fires, street plays, programs and workshops to school children, youth and village heads.
Identifying sensitive areas prone to forest fires and focus heavily on these areas with on ground works like firelines, Patrolling and personel sitting on cliffs and maintain vigil.
3)Quick response team mostly tribals who are well adept in jungle and skilled in extinguishing fire.These teams are deployed every 10 to 15sq kms.
Again these broad guidelines. Needs to be tailored to each site. If the landscape you are referring to is huge. Identify one piece may be 5 or 10 sq kms and get started.
I would be happy to help and assist in charting out a holistic plan.
@sameershisodia and @PraveenRam - if you have any material on best practices to follow while developing fire-lines, do share. We’ve never worked on fire-lines before so any and all information will be useful
Could we collectively develop an easy to understand manual for forest fire prevention? Can be a 1-2 pager with just simple steps and easy to understand measures that can be undertaken. Thoughts @Krutika?
Hi
Recently came across the work that Thambor Lyngdoh has been doing in Meghalaya on building capacity and training first responders to control forest fires.
In most cases fires are setup intentionally by creating forest fire lines but they do go out of control, sometimes it’s just utter carelessness
Thambor believes that quick responders can reduce the intensity and that’s why he has been training locals and encouraging them to volunteer
@Pai - yes a manual would be tremendously useful. We haven’t implemented any on-ground programs in fire prevention yet, but will document our learnings and best practices as we go along. In the meanwhile if anyone who’s done this work can share their learnings, would be super helpful.
Will take help from @sameershisodia and start an email thread to facilitate this conversation with people working in this space. Let’s plan and draft this right away.
From the Lamkani grassland restoration article shared in another thread
Grasslands have historically been associated with forest fires, and in Lamkani too, forest fires are not an uncommon occurrence. Two main roads lead to the hillock and fires are spotted easily from the village. The young people of Lamkani have formed a WhatsApp group where news of forest fires is shared and help is arranged to control the fire. “Every year, we make ‘fire lines’ on the hillock to prevent the spread of fires, but with a grassland habitat, fires are inevitable. To ensure that the damage is contained soon, every resident of Lamkani helps. I have seen young as well as old people run to stop the fires,” shares Shelar.
Hi, Forest fires are extremely difficult to sprout. Best case scenario is to have enough preventive measures in place. Fire lines, help in physical control. Some outreach efforts and quick action team to douse fire. Remember quick detection is the key. Though historically there were fires. Invasive plants quickly monopolize burnt up areas. This was not the case a century ago. Please reach out to me in case you need more information.
After reading your thorough analysis of the forest fire situation, I’m deeply impressed with the work you’re doing at Farmers for Forests.
Indeed, forest fires are a serious problem, and it is encouraging to see your dedication to identifying workable solutions. Wanted to present a cutting-edge strategy that could completely transform your attempts to manage forest fires.
NoArk’s EcoGuard, a state-of-the-art system that we are currently developing, is intended to forecast and stop ecological catastrophes like forest fires. In addition to real-time fire detection, our AI-powered solution also offers actionable insights for prompt response and control. It’s a game-changer for communities dealing with such challenges.
We’re particularly keen to collaborate with experts like yourself who are at the forefront of this issue. Your knowledge and experience would be crucial in enhancing and customizing NoArk’s capabilities to meet the particular issues these regions encounter.
Looking forward to potentially teaming up for a safer, greener future.
