Forest dept targets 100% response rate to wildfires

The Forest department will strive to achieve 100 per cent response rate to wildfire incidents in the current forest fire season which began from January 1 and will continue till June-end, officials said.

- Sudarsan Maharana @Bhubaneswar

As per the Forest department statistics, Odisha recorded 22,868 forest fire points last year, the lowest in last three years, and had responded to 99.86 per cent of them. The state had recorded 28,755 fire points in 2022 and 36,713 in 2023. The response rate was 91.62 per cent and 98.93 per cent respectively.

The area damaged in forest fire in the 2024 forest fire season was 4,067.05 hectare compared to 8,414.55 hectare in 2022 and 9,550.86 hectare in 2023.