The forest fire had spread in a three-hectare-area on the hills in the Tulsi range of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) on Tuesday.
Around 60 people, including members of wildlife organisations, trekkers as well as common Mumbaikars fought a massive forest fire along with the forest department staff for around 10 hours till the wee hours of Wednesday.
The forest fire had spread in a three-hectare-area on the hills in the Tulsi range of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) on Tuesday.
Motivated by the quick response to save the precious SGNP from the fire, Honorary Wildlife Warden, Thane, Pawan Sharma who was part of the fire fighting team has now proposed to the forest department to formally set up a quick response teams consisting of the volunteers as well as other interested citizens, who could be trained and called for help in such situations.
Tuesday's fire was first spotted around 3 pm and was so intense that the smell of burning wood reached LBS Road in Mulund (West). The fire was finally contained by around 6 am on Wednesday.
Sharma said that the SGNP forest staff was trying to contain the fire since evening but the fire was spreading around rapidly and it was obvious that more people were needed and hence they decided to not only volunteer but also ask for help from others. "Soon different NGO's and individuals began reaching the spot and with the help of forest department a strategy was devised and small batches were formed and sent to various locations along with forest staff and efforts to contain the fire began. The operation finally ended on Wednesday morning after the fire was controlled," he said.
The volunteers along with the forest staff had to cut fire lines and restrict the fire by clearing some portion of vegetation to stop the fire from spreading further. Using smaller branches they had to extinguish the fire gradually.
Sunish Kunju, Honorary Wildlife Warden, who also volunteered said that there are several small temples set up using stones all along the paths in the hills. "People could be lighting lamps here and it can easily be the cause of a forest fire apart from other reasons including fires being set on purpose," he said adding that he was planning to write an official letter to the department to clear such structures by making the community understand the risks.
Anwar Ahmed, Director SGNP said that this was almost a first when so many citizen volunteers turned up to contain a forest fire. "We welcome the move to form this response team and will even train these people and seek their help during such crisis. Our staff on Wednesday has begun the investigation into the fire and is also estimating the area affected by fire with the help of GPS," he said.
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