Arunachal : ADC Shweta Nagarkoti leads team to extinguish forest fire at Chimi area

A team of officers and staffs from Fire and Emergency Services, Forest, SDRF, Panchayat leaders and locals led by ADC Shweta Nagarkoti IAS as Incident Commander managed to douse off a forest fire at Chimi area on March 16. The fire was believed to have originated from the burning of nearby farm that intensified due to heavy thunderstorm in the Capital Region on 12th March last.

The ADC informed that the team moved towards the forest at 7am today and managed to cross the difficult terrain and doused the fire at various locations. Another team with manpower from SDRF, Fire and Emergency Services, Forest, Panchayat leaders and locals moved towards another location at 11.30 am from another route as it was inaccessible for the first team to reach there. The second team also managed to douse off the fire and the task was completed by 1.30 pm today.

The DC Capital Itanagar Sachin Rana IAS had stressed in an emergency meeting yesterday that every effort has to be put together to control the fire no matter how difficult the terrain is. He had also emphasized that it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure that the fire doesn’t spread further and for that any means of additional requirement has to be put in place. Accordingly, letters for requisition were placed yesterday to SDRF and helicopter services with buckets.

The DC lauded the team for their best efforts and also thanked the panchayat leaders and the locals for their support and cooperation. He, however, urged the locals and forest officials to remain alert as the possibility of fire in few pockets of the difficult terrain cannot be ruled out completely. The District Administration is ready with men and machineries to tackle any such eventuality.

The DC once again appealed to the denizens of Capital Itanagar to remain alert and to inform the District Administration, Disaster Management Department or the Police whenever such incidents occur so that early measures could be adopted to tackle such event.