INDIA'S BURNING WILDS

The ‘forest fire’ season (Nov.-Jun.) is peaking, with the first big blaze reported from Sariska Tiger Reserve on March 29. The fire raged for three days and IAF choppers flew multiple sorties using a ‘Bambi bucket’ with water to douse it.

- Rahul Noronha

The blaze destroyed around 10 square kilometres of forest land. Luckily, there were no major casualties among the wildlife —under threat were more than 20 resident tigers. While forest fires are common in dry, deciduous forests during the season, there has been a jump in their frequency of late. The Forest Survey of India’s (FSI) ‘State of the Forest Report 2021’, released in January 2022, conducted a vulnerability mapping that shows more than 10 per cent area is at very high risk and 3