Uttarakhand forest fires 'exaggerated' in social media, says CCF

Incidents of forest fires in Uttarakhand have gone up in the last 5 days, but the devastation is nowhere close to what the state had experienced last May, say officials.

Dehradun: The forest fires in Uttarakhand aren’t slightly as severe as social media posts have been declaring lately, according to Uttarakhand forest department.

The state officials clarified on Wednesday that most of the photos circulating on social media are not from Uttarakhand, and are depicting an exaggerated picture.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Wednesday refuted reports that suggested forest fires have ravaged the state, asserting unrelated pictures are being circulated on social media platforms.

• A misleading propaganda, using old pics of forest fires of 2016 & 2019 & that of forest fires in Chilean & Chinese forests, is raging on SM. I req everyone to not believe such motivated campaign. Fire incidents reported until yesterday is way less than PYhttps://t.co/d5R4aq5mjW

  — Trivendra Singh Rawat (@tsrawatbjp) May 27, 2020 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  A misleading propaganda, using old pics of forest fires of 2016 & 2019 & that of forest fires in Chilean & Chinese forests, is raging on SM. I req everyone to not believe such motivated campaign. Fire incidents reported until yesterday is way less than PYhttps://t.co/d5R4aq5mjW

  — Trivendra Singh Rawat (@tsrawatbjp) May 27, 2020

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  A misleading propaganda, using old pics of forest fires of 2016 & 2019 & that of forest fires in Chilean & Chinese forests, is raging on SM. I req everyone to not believe such motivated campaign. Fire incidents reported until yesterday is way less than PYhttps://t.co/d5R4aq5mjW

  — Trivendra Singh Rawat (@tsrawatbjp) May 27, 2020

Retweeting data shared by the Indian Forest Service Association of Uttarakhand, Rawat said cases of forest fires this year are "way less" than the previous year.

According to figures, Uttarakhand had lost more than 1,200 hectares in the massive forest fires in May last year. Compared to that, it has not even crossed the 100-hectare mark this year.

Talking to ETV Bharat, Chief Conservator of Forest Jai Raj said, "So far there have been 62 incidents of forest fire in the state causing losses of around Rs 2.19 lakh. The fire is under control and the forest department workers are extinguishing the fire at all the places. The incidents of forest fire have been much less than last year."

"Master control rooms have been set up in all the divisions of the state. Forest fire incidents have been reported from Almora, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar and Pauri districts. The period from June 15 to 20 has been challenging for the forest department regarding forest fire," added Raj.

The officer said this May the weather was considerably favourable, which kept the fires under control. However, the rapidly rising temperatures over the last few days triggered the forest fire incidents.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has also predicted that the region will receive rainfall Wednesday, which will help further control the fires, Raj added.

Meanwhile, the DG Law and Order, Ashok Kumar said stern action will be taken against those who had spread such a propaganda which is 'far from truth'.