ABSTRACT
Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence.
Wildfire phenomenon plays a vital role in the atmospheric and terrestrial system. It poses threat not only to the bushes and forest but also to the entire regime of fauna and flora seriously disturbing the bio-diversity, ecology and environment of a region.
Many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses.
However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades. Trends in indirect impacts, such as health problems from smoke or disruption to social functioning, remain insufficiently quantified to be examined.
In India as per the data from the National Forest Inventory program of Forest Survey of India (FSI), 9.89% of forest areas are heavily affected and 54.40% mildly affected due to forest fires. Therefore, almost two thirds of our forest areas are vulnerable to forest fires, with forests in the north-eastern region and central India being the most vulnerable. While the overall green cover has increased in the country, the forest cover in the north-east particularly in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland has decreased. Forest Fires could be one of the causes. As per data of FSI of last 15 years there is unclear trend of forest fire incident in India also.
