There is no respite from forest fires in the Kasauli area as temperatures soared to a sweltering 32°C today. In the latest incident, a massive fire erupted near the Mandodhar forest area on the Dharampur-Mangoti Mor road during the wee hours of Wednesday.
The Parwanoo Fire Department received a distress call at 3.32 am and rushed a fire tender to the scene. It took firefighters nearly six hours of aggressive firefighting to douse the blaze, which spread rapidly due to a thick carpet of highly inflammable dry pine needles. Filled with resin, these pine needles act as a tinderbox. Fires ignited by negligent passersby quickly threaten nearby residential areas.
The blaze triggered widespread panic among local residents and staff at nearby tourism units as huge plumes of smoke and fire engulfed the hillside. Because local hotels rely heavily on private water tankers and bore wells for daily use, they had little to spare to combat the emergency.
Santosh Sharma, Commandant, Home Guards (Solan), confirmed that the Parwanoo team successfully brought the Mandodhar fire under control. However, he noted that the crisis was ongoing as another forest fire was reported later this evening in the Basal forest area of Solan. A separate firefighting team was dispatched to extinguish the new blaze, where smoke could still be seen billowing from a distance.
