In May, five individuals lost their lives due to the forest fires that have been devastating Uttarakhand since the previous November. The Forest Department cites out-migration, high-tension wires, and a profusion of pine trees as contributing factors, whereas the State Government has declared to the Supreme Court that the fires are entirely manmade. Ishita Mishra’s journey throughout the state reveals that villagers, predominantly women, are actively participating in quelling the fires.

On May 2, Gyanu Chalaune and his wife Basanti climbed the hills of Sunrakot village in the picturesque Almora district of Uttarakhand to harvest resin from the chir pine trees. Having moved from Nepal to Uttarakhand last year for better opportunities and education for their three children, they faced temperatures above 30°C. They collected the resin, locally known as leesa, for contractor Ramesh Bakuni, earning ₹50,000-60,000 for working 10 hours daily over six months.

As they prepared to depart, the couple heard a scream. They witnessed a man fleeing on the hilltop, desperately attempting to extinguish flames that had consumed him. They discovered with dread that he was Deepak Pujara, an acquaintance. The Chalaunes rushed to the hilltop and discovered Pujara’s wife, Tara, lying on the ground, partially burned. Hastily, they snapped a green branch from a nearby tree and started striking Pujara, even as their garments ignited. Before assistance arrived, the four individuals suffered severe burns. They all passed away due to their injuries in the hospital.

Bakuni hesitated to inform Chalaune’s children about the situation for days. “They have been playing in my garden for months. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them what had occurred,” Bakuni explains, concerned that he may lose his workers. The children are currently being looked after by their uncle in Nepal’s Bajhang district, their place of origin.

This year, forest fires in Uttarakhand have claimed five lives and injured four more. As per the 2019 report by the Forest Survey of India, the documented forest area of Uttarakhand is 38,000 square kilometers, signifying 71.05% of the state’s total geographical area. Forest fires started raging in November 2023, and as of May 10, 1,385.5 hectares (ha) of forest land have been destroyed in 1,038 incidents. The people whose lives depend on the mountains have paid the price for these fires, even though the government have written them off as “annual affairs” in the hills.

Flame of the forest

According to a pamphlet found on the Uttarakhand Forest Department website, the primary causes of forest fires are high-tension cables, an abundance of highly combustible chir pine trees, and the rising number of people leaving the region for other States, which has left the hills desolate. The brochure claims that although younger generations lack the environmental education they need to put out forest fires, elder generations—who make up the majority of the population on the hills—are unable to scale the hilltops to do so.

Due to the Central government’s ambitious Ujjawala plan, which provides cooking gas to residents in the hills, villagers have ceased going to the hills’ forests to get wood for cooking, which is also contributing to an increase in forest fires.

it adds.

Dhananjai Mohan, the Head of Forest Force in Uttarakhand, reports that surfaces have become drier due to an unusually prolonged dry spell and lower snowfall this year. Consequently, fires are spreading more rapidly in the forests, which are densely populated with pine trees. The forest department’s website states that Uttarakhand encompasses 3,94,383.84 hectares of chir pine forests, which represent 15% of the state’s 13 varieties of trees.

In conditions already prone to fires, forest fires quickly escalate when villagers burn stubble in their fields. With villages and forests intermingled throughout the state, fires are also sparked by discarded burning cigarettes or when individuals intentionally set fires to clear land, mistakenly believing it promotes fodder growth

he says.

Dousing fires for a mango drink, biscuits

It’s May 6. The once-green hills of Sitlakhet, an Almora village 1,900 meters above sea level in the Kumaon Himalayas, are hidden by a heavy layer of smog and are no longer visible from the balconies of the residences there.

The forest floor is covered in the ashes of burnt pine leaves, and the trees have turned black. Heat is radiated by the mountains, which are a constant source of pure, cool air. The air is heavy with the fragrance of charred wood rather than flowers.

After putting out a forest fire, about twenty women from Bhakar village, which is adjacent, and Sitlakhet village descend from a hilltop. They toiled for ten hours, using green bushes—their only defense against the soaring flames. They appear worn out; their clothing are drenched in ash and perspiration.

The women are part of the 300-strong “Jungle Ke Dost (friends of forests)” group in Sitlakhet. Gajendra Pathak, a 56-year-old pharmacist at a nearby healthcare facility, is their mentor. Last year, she organized a community campaign to combat forest fires with the help of these women and a few men. Upon hearing his call, the group’s members—who were primarily women—started putting out fires.

The women receive biscuits and a 125 milliliter tetra pack of Frooti, a popular drink with a pleasant mango flavor, as payment for their labor. These were ordered by Pathak, and they were paid for by Manoj Lohani, the forest ranger. To take the packages home for their kids, the women attach them to the corners of their sarees.

A housewife named Indumati is among them, and she just wants to get home.“Sir, please take me,” she says to Pathak, who is with them. “My six-month-old child must be hungry. I breastfed him at 10 a.m. before coming here. It’s 6:30 p.m. now,” she says, as she wipes her worn-out slippers.

Pathak halts a passing Jeep and invites the women to get in. Before they board, Lohani hands several women a gardening rake to clear the forest perimeter, preventing fires from spreading.

“These women are why you see greenery here. Without them, forest fires would have devastated everything. It’s disheartening that we can’t do more for them. They risk their lives to protect our mountains,” Pathak remarks, advocating for life insurance from the government for those who aid in controlling forest fires.

When asked about the higher number of women in the group, Debuli Devi, aged 65, responds,“Ye aadmi hi to jungle main aag lagate hain. Woh kya ise bhujayenge? (It is the men who set the forest on fire. How will they douse the fire?)“

As a token of appreciation for their efforts, the women of Jungle Ke Dost, a community-led initiative to combat forest fires, receive a 125 millilitre tetra pack of Frooti and some biscuits. | Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap

In a similar vein, Sunil Rawat from Patwa Dagar village in Nainital district reports that he has assisted in putting out over 20 forest fires since April 19. “Sitlakhet is not unique in this regard. Villagers throughout the State gather in significant numbers to aid the forest department, which has recently become more proactive in managing these events,” he states.

Chandra Shekhar Joshi, the District Forest Officer of Nainital, mentions that the forest department has proposed to the State government to provide compensation to villagers who contribute to fire control efforts. The Nainital district, which boasts the largest forest cover (70.67%) in the State, employs approximately 300 forest fire watchers, half of whom are women.

Of the recorded forest area of 38,000 sq km in Uttarakhand, the forest department manages 26.5 lakh ha of reserved forests where human intervention is banned, while van panchayats, or community-led forest managers, manage 7.32 lakh ha. As per a forest department bulletin, there is greater damage to reserved forests than to the area managed by the van panchayats.

After the recent fires, the State government announced insurance cover of ₹3 lakh for 4,000 contract employees of the forest department.

Playing politics

On May 8, the Uttarakhand government stated in the Supreme Court that all instances of forest fires were man-made. The government reported that 388 criminal cases had been filed statewide against individuals responsible for igniting the fires. Typically, those arrested were attempting to burn stubble and were unable to contain the fires, which then spread rapidly due to strong winds.

The government submitted a 380-page interim status report to the Court, clarifying that media reports claiming 40% of Uttarakhand was on fire were “misleading.” In reality, only 0.1% of the forest cover was impacted by the fires. The report further stated that both the State Disaster Response Force and the National Disaster Response Force had been mobilized to combat the forest fires. Additionally, the Indian Air Force was employing Bambi Buckets—collapsible containers suspended from helicopters that discharge substantial quantities of water over specific areas—to extinguish the flames.

The report stated that the Uttarakhand Forest Fire Mitigation Project 2023-28 is awaiting approval from the Central government. It also mentioned that forest fires are not a new phenomenon in the state and no longer constitute an emergency situation.

The government has informed the Court of its collaboration with IIT Roorkee to investigate cloud seeding as a means to induce rainfall and increase precipitation. However, the Court rejected this approach, stating that “cloud seeding or reliance on rain gods is not the solution” to forest fires.

Following rainfall the subsequent day, the government took credit for having completely controlled the forest fires. Nevertheless, the fires continued, with 11 new forest fires reported on May 17 alone.

On that day, the Court postponed the case to September 2024, having expressed contentment with the State’s actions to address the issue. The State reported that it had allocated the full Compensatory Afforestation Fund towards firefighting and prevention efforts, and was in the process of staffing vacant positions within the forest department, among other initiatives.

The Congress quickly used this issue to attack the State administration, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the Lok Sabha election campaign. “In April, as the forest fires persisted, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami was occupied with visiting other States to endorse BJP candidates. Even Subodh Uniyal, the Minister of Forests, was campaigning in Assam, according to Congress spokesperson Garima Dasauni.

Following the campaign, Dhami met with officials and gave the go-ahead for the police to use the Gangster Act and the Uttarakhand Public and Private Property Damage Recovery Act, 2024, against anyone discovered to be lighting forest fires.

Where solutions lie

Pathak argues that the chir pine tree is unfairly blamed for the fires in Uttarakhand. He highlights its value as a versatile resource for timber, fuel wood, furniture, decoration, charcoal, resin, and coal tar. He questions if any other tree offers such diverse benefits. The State’s initiative to produce electricity from pine needles, abundant from mid-March to July, is hindered by the low collection prices.

The State has conceived a method to produce electricity from pine needles that drop from trees annually from mid-March to the beginning of the rainy season in July. However, the minimal compensation for collecting these needles has been ineffective.

This year, Dhami introduced the Pirul Lao-Paise Pao scheme, which translates to “bring pine leaves and earn money.” Under this initiative, the State is buying pine leaves at ₹50 per kilogram, a significant increase from the previous rate of ₹3 per kilogram.

Pathak recommends that the government should increase community involvement to reduce forest fires. He advocates for the statewide adoption of the Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) technique. This cost-effective and straightforward method for forest restoration promotes the natural recovery of degraded or deforested lands by creating conducive conditions for native tree species to grow. It encompasses various practices, including eradicating invasive species, generating microsites for seedling establishment, and safeguarding natural regrowth from grazing and other disruptions. “The expense of ANR wouldn’t even be half of what the government currently spends on tree planting. Moreover, the actual implementation of the government’s initiative doesn’t even account for 10% of the total saplings planted,” he asserts.Establishing a fire line across the mountains is crucial to mitigate fires, he adds.

The forest fires in Uttarakhand have not only caused environmental damage but also stoked communal tensions after a video surfaced showing young men celebrating while the fires blazed in the background. Accusations surfaced against Muslims for allegedly setting the forests ablaze as a form of “revenge” against the State government’s implementation of a Uniform Civil Code and the initiation of an “anti-encroachment drive” in Haldwani in February, which led to riots. The individuals in the video, originating from Bihar, were arrested by the police, who stated their intent to create the video was to garner ‘likes’ on Instagram.

Hemant Dhyani of Ganga Avahan, an NGO that strives to safeguard the Ganga river, is concerned about the snowball effect of recurrent forest fires as the fires are being put out. “Fires blaze through forests. As a result, the soil and mountains lose some of their strength. Flash floods are caused when rain falls because the loose soil cannot hold onto the water, which affects ground water replenishment. Landslides happen when the loose boulders smash and water also pours down,” he says.

Uttarakhand environmentalist Ravi Chopra claims that the State’s forest administration has “very few or no capabilities” to contain forest fires. “Unless the local people are empowered and given confidence, nothing can be done to mitigate forest fires,” he says.

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