Forest department gears up for Zero Forest Fire Year

Hyderabad: A Training of Trainers (ToT) programme was conducted for forest officers from various forest divisions at the TS Forest Academy in Dulapally. A total of 61 officers, includingrange officers, deputy range officers, section officers and beat officers attended the two-day program. On the occasion, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (IT&P) Raghuveer detailed the department’s strategy for 2019 as “Zero Forest Fire Year”. He called for systematic planning for prevention, detection, suppression and post-fire management. Specific groups like Beedi leaf collectors, grazers, Mahua collectors and so on are to be targeted for helping forest department in preventing, detecting and suppressing forest fires.

TS Forest Department entered into a MoU with National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and is able to send SMS-based alerts to all field officers to take any immediate actions on forest fires. In the evening, VallampatlaNageswar Rao, a retired teacher and writer, presented a dance-drama prepared for creating mass awareness on forest fires. VarlaPapaiah, a regional fire officer of TS Fire & Disaster Management Services department,along with his officers explained about the services that the department can provide. Live demonstrations were made on the equipment used by the department in fire fighting. The live demonstrations really helped the forest officers to overcome the fear of dealing with fires.

Ravindran of At Freelancing Company in Bangalore demonstrated various equipments, dresses used in fire fighting. Many of the products are found very impressive, and the participants eagerly examined each product. Nagabhushanam, a fire officerat Kinnerasani Wildlife Sanctuary, gave a live demonstration of equipment used in fire fighting like blower, rakes, boots, gloves and others. Fire line was created and control of fire spread using blower was demonstrated.

The participants were divided into ten groups and each group was assigned one topic related toforest fire management. The group members discussed the given topic and made presentations. All group presentations, action plan and materials were supplied to the participants. All participants highly appreciated the training and showed high level of preparedness for conducting trainings at their division before January 8.