PANAJI
Forest Survey of India (FSI) data has revealed that Goa had 412 forest fires in the last five years and a whopping 147 of these in the eight non-monsoon months of 2022-23 (Nov-June), which includes the devastating month of March '23 when several forest fires devastated vast patches of Goa's evergreen Western Ghats forests for several days.
According to data furnished by Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Ms Jebi Mather Hisham, in Parliament earlier last week, the SNPP-VIIRS sensors of the FSI detected in the Goa region 47 fires in Nov-June of 2019-20 and another 45 in the same eight months of 2020-21.
The forest fires drastically dropped by more than half to 21 in the next Nov-June period (2021-22), the data produced by Hisham in the Rajya Sabha showed.
Then came the Nov-June eight-month period of 2022-23, which includes the March '23 month which had Goa's administration including its Disaster Management Authority, all related departments and even the Navy struggling to fight several fires which broke out simultaneously across the entire length of the Western Ghats in Goa.
Hisham said 147 fires were detected by FSI in these eight months in Goa and they dropped to a low of just 36 fires in the subsequent eight (Nov-June) months of 2023-24.
Hisham also said in her written reply to an unstarred question in the Rajya Sabha that 2,244 square kilometers of Goa’s forest cover has been identified as “less fire prone”.
The State however has no forest cover which is identified as “moderately fire prone,” “highly fire prone,” “very highly prone” or “extremely fire prone,” she said.
Hisham was asked to give Union Territories and States wise data of forest fires over the last five years. This data she furnished in response indicates that Goa is among the group of States which are least vulnerable to forest fires but it is not the case with the two neighbouring States it shares borders with -- Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Both Karnataka and Maharashtra are bracketed among States which have larger swathes of their forest cover vulnerable to fires. While Karnataka has 33,563 forest fires in the same five years, Maharashtra had over one-lakh fires, although both these States are geographically vastly larger and have immensely greater forest cover than Goa.
