“We can´t yet calculate the actual area that has caught fire, but we are receiving calls reporting fires from all over the country,” said Nabin Nath Chalise, Assistant Forest Officer at the department.
Forest fires happen every year in the pre-monsoon season but experts say that this year, as a direct effect of global warming, the winter months remained extremely dry thereby drying up the moisture content of vegetation and land and leading to widespread forest fires.
“From a climate change perspective, this dryness is very natural and is an indication of permanent natural damage. The only thing we can do is prepare for adverse droughts and bigger fires in the coming years,” says Ngamindra Dahal, Climate Change Coordinator at the National Trust for Nature Conservation.
While fires in most Tarai areas have remained at ground level, fires in the hills are destroying trees and animals and claiming human life as well. Fire in the eastern hill district of Ramechhap killed 13 soldiers last week and another fire in Gulmi district in the west claimed five lives. At the same time a fire in Rasuwa district in the mountains left 114 yaks dead, according to Chalise.
Not only are fires blazing in community forests but they are also taking a toll on endangered habitats in the national parks.
“An uncontrolled fire has been burning in Syapru area of Langtang National Park since Saturday,” says Laxmi Prasad Manandhar, spokesperson for the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.
Manandhar says that no efforts have been made to douse the fire. No initiative has been taken yet, because, as in Langtang, most of the forest fires take place away from human habitats.
Fire has also been raging at Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in the far western plains for the past 10 days.
Army personnel deployed there have not made any effort to douse the fire, which is spreading in the wildlife reserve as well as surrounding community forests It is covering Mahendranagar and its vicinity with smog. The smog, which has intensified over the last two days, is bringing various health problems to the locals.
“If the fire isn´t doused soon, the excessive amount of carbon monoxide can cause pneumonia among children and asthma among the elderly,” says Dr Arjun Prasad Shrestha of Mahakali Zonal Hospital.
Birds at risk
“More than 50 percent of globally threatened birds found in Nepal are at Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve,” says, Bhagwan Raj Dahal, an expert with Bird Conservation Nepal.
The current fire, which has destroyed 55 square kilometers of grassland at Suklaphanta, is proving disastrous for the endangered bird species Swamp Francolin. This is the hatching period for Swamp Francolin, a grassland bird listed as ´vulnerable´ to extinction by Bird Conservation International.
“Most of the newly hatched chicks and nests of this grassland bird have probably been destroyed by the fire,” says Dahal.
Many other endangered birds and animals are facing a similar fate but there has been no effort at a national level to douse the fire because in most areas it isn´t threatening human life. The ecological damage done by the fires, though, remains to be measured.
kushal@myrepublica.com
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