By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 30 Jan: In preparation for the upcoming forest fire season in 2025, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Head of Forest Force (HoFF) has nominated 10 senior officers of the Forest Department as nodal officers for various districts. This initiative aims to effectively control forest fire incidents in highly sensitive districts, strengthen coordination with available resources at the district level, and collaborate with other line departments. These officers will conduct field inspections periodically to monitor forest fire management efforts.
Speaking to Garhwal Post, senior forest officers shared that PCCF, Administration, BP Gupta has been nominated as the nodal officer for Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts. PCCF, Wildlife, Ranjan Kumar Mishra has been nominated as nodal officer for Tehri district, APCCF, Projects, Kapil Lal has been nominated as nodal officer for Uttarkashi district. APCCF Vivek Pandey has been nominated as nodal officer for Nainital district. Chief Conservator of Forests HRD and Personnel, Meenakshi Joshi has been nominated as nodal officer for Pauri Garhwal.
Chief Conservator of Forests, Eco Tourism, PK Patro has been nominated as nodal officer for Bageshwar district. Chief Conservator of Forests, Forest Panchayat, Parag Madhukar Dhate has been nominated as nodal officer for Dehradun and Haridwar districts. Chief Conservator of Forests and Director, Forestry Training Academy in Haldwani, Tejaswini Patil has been nominated as the nodal officer for Udham Singh Nagar and Champawat districts. Chief Conservator of Forests, Action Plan, in Haldwani, Sanjeev Chaturvedi has been nominated as the nodal officer for Pithoragarh district, while Chief Conservator of Forests, Monitoring and Evaluation, Rahul has been nominated as the nodal officer for Almora district.
This time in pursuit of the directions in this regard issued by Chief Minister Puskhar Singh Dhami and Forest Minister Subodh Uniyal, preparations to deal effectively with the forest fires have been launched well before the start of the forest fire season, which begins on 15 February each year. Not only this, this time, very senior ranked officers have been nominated for each district as nodal officers and they have been asked to review preparations for forest fire management at the district level before and during the season and to ensure effective control and to personally monitor and ensure coordination in the department and all related departments and district administrations in respect of forest fire incidents.
To increase community participation in forest fire control and management, the Forest Department, Uttarakhand, is also conducting meetings with field personnel and Fire Management Committees to implement the Sheetalakhet model across all divisions in the state under the Almora Forest Division. So far, 20 teams from 15 forest divisions, comprising 970 personnel and Forest Panchayat Sarpanchs, have been deployed for this.
