Sanaman Ale Magar, 53, had his lunch hurriedly to join other villagers to stop the forest fire from advancing to their settlement. Raktakali Community Forest was on fire from the previous day and it was approaching his village Dangshingtar swiftly.
“No sooner had we reached the forest and started sweeping the ground to stop the fire, a strong gust of wind blew a huge ball of fire and landed on my house which was almost 150m away,” Sanaman recalled the day, adding, “We rushed to our house, and could only watch helplessly as it burned to ground. All we have left was the clothes on our back.”
Fire gutted 13 houses along with Sanaman’s in Dangshingtar, Ward No 1 of Baraha Pokhari Rural Municipality in Khotang district on Friday. On the same day, four more houses in Halesi Tuwachung Municipality and one house in Rawabesi Rural Municipality of the district was also lost to fire that spread from forest fire, according to the District Police Office.
Sanaman’s ward representative Rabin Magar told Everest Chronicle that surviving families received up to Rs 40,000 cash relief, and they have been taking shelter at their relatives’ homes. “We are not equipped to handle fire at all. We do not have fire truck. Even if we had, first we lack manpower to use it, and second we have water scarcity in our village. Where would we find water for the fire truck”, Rabin told Everest Chronicle.
Sanaman had 40 goats in his shed next to his house. He had tied them all inside because their grazing area, the forest, was on fire. He lost all his 40 goats to the fire as well. Usually people in the area have two houses flanking a central yard, one the main house and another an additional house called “mataan” that mostly serves as storage and guest house. Both these buildings and his shed turned into ashes, as they burned continuously for 2 days.
“Government officials are making assessment of the loss,” said Sanaman. The cash relief was not enough to cover even loss of his goats. All 10 members of his family are now sheltering at his younger brother’s house in the village.
There has hardly been any rain in his area. Due to a prolonged dry spell, the forest has turned into tinder box. “Fire is ravaging forests across the district. Wherever I set my eyes on, I see forests around me ablaze. Wildfires are expected in this time of year, but this year it has been on an unprecedented scale. It is a lesson for us to be prepared for fire”, said Rabin.
The country has recorded at least 576 cases of forest fires from February 1 to April 27, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, making it one of the worst wildfire disasters in recent decades. Forest fires has claimed the lives of eight people, including security forces engaged in firefighting, and a woman, while 21 others are injured.
Forest fires have now spread to over 50 districts in Nepal, ravaging thousands of hectares of forests and displacing both humans and wildlife. Due to a lack of attention from authorities to contain it in a comprehensive manner, inadequate local efforts and continued hot, dry, and windy weather condition has made the forest fire particularly severe in the past couple of weeks. At least 169 cases of wildfires were recorded in the last one week alone.
Poor reporting system and lack of scientific assessment make it difficult to determine the exact extent of the damage. However, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction Portal, a total of 324 families were directly affected by forest fires, with estimated damages amounting to Rs 40,491,800. Although no official estimates are available, the forest fires are believed to be having a devastating impact on wildlife, especially in the national park areas of Western Nepal.
Reasons behind increase in cases of forest fires are unclear, but experts believe that factors such as heat, frequent lightning, dry grass in the jungles, and human activities may be contributing factors. Moreover, fires are spreading unabated as there is a lack of or half-hearted response from the government.
While cities like Kathmandu and Pokhara haven’t had direct impact of forest fires, the smoke from hundreds of fires across the country has turned Kathmandu into one of the most polluted cities, with its air ranked unbreathable.
Despite forests across all regions of the country being engulfed one after another for over two months now, the government has yet to devise a strategy to address it. Meanwhile, scattered efforts from security agencies, lacking resources or expertise to handle large-scale forest fires, have proven to be too little, too late and even deadly in some instances. Earlier this month, three Nepal Army personnel died while trying to contain fire in Dolpa.
Media reports show that the situation is the same across the country, where villagers are unsuccessfully trying to douse the fires, often without any assistance from the central or provincial government, or the under-resourced local government. They are being forced to wait weeks, if not months, for any support in the wake of the disaster.
The government doesn’t appear to be in the mood to accept the gravity of the problem, let alone help resolve it.
Speaking at a program organized at his ministry on Friday, deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, Rabi Lamichhane, refuted allegation that the government is not doing anything, insisting that his ministry was doing all it could, including ensuring there be no delay in providing relief to people affected by forest fires and other fire incidents. He claimed that the government was timely and effectively mobilizing available resources to the affected.
Lamichhane, however, acknowledged the shortcomings of current efforts, stressing the importance of proactive preparedness to minimize loss in unpredictable disasters while learning from past mistakes. Lamichhane’s remarks echoed the standard lines that home ministers have been repeating for several decades after forest fires, which have recurred nearly every year in recent decades.
While the federal government has drafted laws for disaster risk and management, these laws have been imposed on provinces and local governments without considering their unique and individual risks or capacity. There is hardly any allocation of resources to purchase fire engines, train firefighters, and provide them with safety gear. The number of fire engines all over the country numbers in three digits, and there is very few trained manpower for firefighting. Most of them are in the Nepal Army, which is perhaps the best equipped and the most well-resourced government entity to combat forest fires. The death of three Army personnel last month is a grave reminder of how very inadequate and helpless even our most resourceful body is in the face of forest fire.
