Forest fires rage as mercury soars
With mercury soaring the incidents of forest fires in various parts of the state has gone up even though most are ground fires with an estimated loss of only Rs 10.35 lakh. Till now 71 cases of forest fires have been reported with none of them being a devastating one. The forest area that has been affected by the fires this year till now is 972 hectares. Even though the fire-prone season is after April 15 onwards, the forest staff were put on alert right from mid-March this year so that any incident of fire could be prevented and the damage confined to the minimum.