Karnah: Attempts to control forest fires in Karnah continued on Wednesday as the department had called for additional staff after which about a 100 employees reached Karnah from Tarhalgam range and Kupwara’s Ramhal and were engaged in controlling the fire.
Fire in the forest for the last four days has affected the forests of Kalsori from Tangdar Nard while entire Karnah was full of smoke. An consorted effort by the Forest protection forces, fire and emergency service and locals has been on and 80 percent of the fire has been brought under control.
Meanwhile Range Officer Zahoor Ahmed from Trehgam and Ramhal Range officer Bashir Ahmed along with one hundred forest department personnel reached Karnah and continued the efforts to control the fire which, due to dry weather and strong winds has been causing great difficulty to the fghters.
Talking to Kashmir Images, Range officers Karnah, Shams-ur-Rehman, said that fire broke out in compartment 34 at around 2.30 pm on Monday and due to the intervention of the top officials of the department, about 100 employees reached Karnah from Kupwara today and started extinguishing the fire and were engaged in the process till late evening.
He further said that eighty percent of the forest fires were extinguished and the fire will be brought under control soon. He also appealed to the people to protect the forest and not use cigarettes or light fires in forest areas to avoid such catastrophe.
