A total of 25 hectares forest is destroyed by wild fire in Langtang National Park. The fire broke out at different nine adjoining forests has destroyed trees, saplings and wild animals. The fires had broken out in the national park last month.
According to conservation officer Sushma Rana, the forests in Dhunche, Thade, Ramche, Lokil, Juredhunga, Bharkhu and Kalika of Rasuwa district, Ghyangphedi of Nuwakot district and
Panchpokhari areas of Sindhupalchok district are adversely affected by the forest fire.
Ranger Ramesh Basnet of the National Park shared that they were effortful to lessen the risk of forest fire but the dry season remains always challenge to them. However, a detail damage of the wildlife due to forest fire is yet to be confirmed. The park is abode of hundreds of species of animals and insects.
It is said the national park is home to 46 species of mammals and 250 species of birds.
The Shuklagandaki municipality-12 in Tanahu has reported incidents of fire at different community forests since the past few days. As ward chair Manaraj Gurung said the forest fires have broken out at Pragatishil, Laxmithumka and Aamdanda forests.
Similarly, the Postakbari community forest in the neighbouring ward also reports the fire, according to him.
Fire has also broken out in community forests sharing border with Kaski. Community forests located in the surroundings of Firfirey report the rising incidents of fire.
The Division Forest Office has intensified the public awareness campaign against the forest fire with the beginning of the dry season.
Eight sub-division forest offices in the district have implemented programmes to control the incidents of forest fire. The forest covers up 82,549 hectares of area in the district. There are 616 community forests, 484 lease-hold and 6 religious forests at the ten local levels in the district.
Incidents of fire have increased in the forest areas in Kanchanpur district, the district in the Far-west province.
Incidents of wildfire have been found increased this year compared to the previous year, the Division Forest Office Kanchanpur said. The drought condition and hot weather is attributed to the increase in the incidents of bushfire, it is said.
Timber worth hundreds of thousands of rupees has been destroyed due to the forest fires. The wildlife habitat has also been destroyed, pushing the wild animals to migrate towards the human settlements and exposing them to risk of killing by humans.
Division Forest Office information officer Shivaraj Awasthi said 99 per cent of the forest fires are caused by human negligence while only one per cent of the incidents are due to natural causes.
According to him, most of the wildfires are found to start from burning cigarette butts and matchsticks thrown by careless people including cattle herders and picnickers.
Sometimes, the picnickers forget to put out the fire they have made to cook food which causes forest fires. The herders are also found to deliberately start fire in the forest.
"Last year forest fire had spread only on 150 hectares forest. This year wildfires have spread to 200 hectares so far. Incidents of forest fires might also rise as the dry summer season has not come to an end," he said.
Forest fires that have started in more than 30 community forests, the Laljhadi protected forest, the national forest area, Shuklaphanta National Park and forest areas in Chure region have caused extensive damage.
Teams comprising of community forest staff, police, Armed Police Force and local people are actively working to douse the fire.
Although teams are engaged in controlling the forest fires, this has been hampered due to lack of resources, firefighting equipment and the difficult terrain, especially in the Chure hill areas.
