June 04, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 18, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 3: With summer settling down, the mountains of Margalla range suffered their first fire incident of the season on Saturday night, engulfing a large area and damaging flora and fauna.

The exact cause of fire could not be ascertained but the city managers claim that it was man-made. The fire that spread over a large area on the hills could not be overcome even after passing of 24 hours.

According to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) Environment Directorate, fire started from the Hazara side, which falls in the periphery of the NWFP, and spread to Jungle No 25 in the Islamabad limits due to the wind.

“Our staff is trying to extinguish the fire since last night and we hope that they will do so in the next two or three hours,” an official of the CDA said.

He said: “Fire in the NWFP side is still burning and we have contacted the department concerned to extinguish it as it was affecting the area of the capital as well.”

A few years ago the World Bank (WB) conducted a study which revealed that there was no natural reason for fire to break out on Margalla Hills and all fires that have so far erupted there were man-made.

Eruption of fire on Margalla Hills during summer has become a yearly phenomenon. The study said fires erupted because of cooking on hills, throwing of cigarette butts or match sticks intentionally or unintentionally and to cover theft of timber.

It recommended that at least one helicopter should be allocated to keep a regular watch and to control fire.

The source said some parts of Margalla Hills fell in the periphery of the frontier area and the NWFP authorities were taking no care to control frequent incidents of fire.

The CDA and the NWFP had chalked out a joint strategy two years ago to avoid fire incidents, but both administrations failed to check them.

The CDA official said some 26 unauthorised villages existed on the hilly area whose population of over 10,000 people survived on firewood. However the CDA staff did not allow them to uproot even bushes from the hill’s forest.

“Clash of interests between the CDA staff and the villagers was one of the causes of fire because sometimes villagers intentionally threw burning material on the bushes to create trouble for the authority,” he added.

He said the forest staff of the CDA comprised 200 locals of hilly area who had both friends and enemies in the area.

“Sometimes their enemies set bushes on fire,” he maintained.

Shortage of forest staff is stated to be one of the reasons why fire on Margalla Hills cannot be controlled in time.

According to the CDA official some 200 personnel of the forest staff have been looking after 31,142 acres area of Margalla Hills. The forest department required at least 100 more personnel for better performance.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) has stressed the need for improvement in fire-fighting system to extinguish fire on the hills.

A senior official of Pak-EPA said the fire-fighting staff engaged in the hills should not rely only on water to extinguish the fire but also use modern means to control it.