Published: February 22, 2018, 2:40 am On Opinion
BIJAYA RAJ PAUDYAL
Most of the forest fires in Nepal are human-induced and occur during the dry season, with around 89 percent of them occurring in March, April, and May. In one of the worst fires in recent memory, 49 people were killed and thousands of hectares of forest land was damaged in the summer of 2009. In 2016, 15 people were reported dead in forest fires. By May 2016, forest fires had destroyed 1.3 million hectares of forests.
In 2017, about 39,000 hectares of forest cover in inside protected areas, and public and community forests were reported to have been damaged by forest fires. Three houses and six cowsheds were affected too. A study report published in early 2017 showed that in total 18 out of 75 districts were found to be at high risk of forest fires.
Read more: https://thehimalayantimes.com/opinion/combating-forest-fires/
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