A very disturbing and depressing situation has come up since around a month ago during November when the forest fires started to engulf the green gold. The eastern part of Paddar area of Garh – Chishoti belt was the first area to come under the influence of massive outbreak of fire which resulted in bringing acres of precious trees and wildlife to ashes. Paddar forests fires was brought under control after the locals joined in along with the forest department officials working relentlessly day in and out.
The people of Paddar witnessed another outbreak of mammoth blazing inferno yesterday to the northern side of Tehsil Headquarter Atholi above village Kolha and to the western side in the jungles of Village Kijaie area. The fire started in the afternoon yesterday which continued to burn everything unabated in its path till the time of writing this article. At present around 4 to 6 compartments of Paddar forest belt are under severe fire which the present generation has not witnessed in ages.
Whole area is under thick smoke resulting in poor quality of air and no visibility of the scenic mountains of this beautiful place. The locals are volunteering to douse the fire which has become a matter of grave concern.
We on behalf of the whole population of Paddar urge the Forest Department of Jammu and Kashmir to kindly look into the seriousness of the situation and set all the man power available with them in motion at a war footing to extinguish the monster forest fires.
Very disturbing, people need to be educated to avoid such disastrous acts and there needs to be harsh punishment provisions for these dastardly blunders.
True!
A very bad sequence of events