Information about forest fire in india last 10 years?

Question

Information about forest fire in india last 10 years?

Answer 1

As per the latest state of forests report of the Forest Survey of India the actual forest cover of India is 19.27% of the geographic area, corresponding to 63.3 million ha. Only 38 million ha of forests are well stocked (crown density above 40%). This resource has to meet the demand of a population of 950 million people and around 450 million cattle. As such, country has to meet the needs of 16% of the world's population from 1% of the world forest resources. The same forest has also to cater for the 19% of the world cattle population.

    The forests of the country are therefore, under tremendous pressure. Forest fires are a major cause of degradation of India's forests. While statistical data on fire loss are weak, it is estimated that the proportion of forest areas prone to forest fires annually ranges from 33% in some states to over 90% in other. About 90% of the forest fires in India are created by humans. The normal fire season in India is from the month of February to mid June. India witnessed the most severe forest fires in the recent time during the summer of 1995 in the hills of Uttar Pradesh & Himachal Pradesh. The fires were very severe and attracted the attention of whole nation. An area of 677,700 ha was affected by fires.

    The Forest Survey of India, data on forest fire attribute around 50% of the forest areas as fire prone. This does not mean that country's 50% area is affected by fires annually. Very heavy, heavy and frequent forest fire damages are noticed only over 0.8%, 0.14% and 5.16% of the forest areas respectively.Thus, only 6.17% of the forests are prone to severe fire damage. In the absolute term, out of the 63 million ha. of forests an area of around 3.73 million ha can be presumed to be affected by fires annually.