MURREE: Fire broke out in the forests of Lower Topa, Kashmiri Bazar, Angoori and Sunny Bank. The fire has turned precious trees in the forests to ashes besides damaging flora and fauna.

In dry weather conditions, fire is a common phenomenon in these forests as trees and their leaves go dry,but the tehsil municipal administration has not solved the issue permanently.

Forests are not only a great source of attraction for the tourists, but also help prevent landsliding. Besides, they also check flow of muddy water into the Rawal and Simly dams, the main sources of water supply to Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

During winter trees are chopped down by locals to use them as firewood.

Locals, however, alleged that the timber mafia set the forests on fire to hide their wrongdoings. Despite the only hill station of Punjab, the provincial government to overcome the fire during winter. At present the post of district forest officer has been lying vacant following the transfer of Rana Farooq. Therefore there was no officer was available for comments.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2014