The Defence authorities yesterday ordered a crackdown on those responsible for causing deliberate forest fires adding that fire belts will be set up at the earliest to prevent further infernos, State Minister of Defence, Premitha Bandara Tennakoon said.
The State Minister told officials of the Wild Life and Forest Conservation Departments, Disaster Management Centre and other State agencies including the police and military that action should be taken at the earliest before the situation spirals out of control.
He said that fire belts will also be set up at the earliest as a precaution to prevent further wild fires.
Pradeep Koddippili of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said that fire belts are set up by keeping a bare space at the base of hill slopes and other areas to prevent the fire from entering the larger forest cover.
“Trekkers, campers, poachers and superstitious persons are suspected to be the biggest culprits and, therefore, the police and other State agencies such as the Forest and Wild Life Department along with the police and Security Forces should thwart future wild fires, the State Minister said.
“One-hundred-and-twenty-three wild fires had been reported this year, up 40 percent compared to 73 such infernos last year”, he said.
He stressed the importance of arresting the forest fires at the earliest with representatives from the Security Forces, police, Fire Brigade and the Forest Conservation Department.
He said that on account of the prevailing dry weather, the number of forest fire incidents had increased due to deliberate or careless human activities and, therefore, everyone should pay more attention to take preemptive measures to prevent such destruction of the forests.
The DMC, Security Forces, Fire Brigades, District and the Divisional Secretariats, Wildlife Department and the Forest Conservation Department have made great efforts in the past few days to suppress the forest fires. He added that arrangements have been made to delegate a number of monitoring activities to the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), Wildlife Department, Forest Conservation Department, Plantation Industry and the Ports Authority and special requests have also been made to the Forest Conservation Department and Wildlife Department to control this situation especially in highly sensitive areas and that the DMC and Ministry of Defence have discussed ways on how support could be extended towards this end.
“We hope to implement a special program to set up fire belts in the next few days, and we have taken steps to launch a program to train the Security Forces and CSD personnel by the Fire Brigade, for the purpose,” he said. He said that Government Estate Superintendents have also been briefed on this situation and they have been asked to take all efforts to avert forest fires in their regions. He said that a special request has been made to the Wildlife Minister to take steps to prevent people from entering sensitive areas. The State Minister said that some people in villages set fire to forests due to superstitious beliefs that such actions would bring rain.