UTTRAKHAND’S FORESTFIRES
The state of Uttarakhand has over 71% of it’s geographical area under forest cover and is gifted with more than hundred species of fauna and flora. These forests are not only a source of livelihood for the present generation but an asset that needs to be preserved and passed to on to our future generation.
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But every year, it suffers due to widespread forest fires. In the year 2018, forests in Uttarakhand witnessed 2148 incidents of forest fire destroying around 4500 hectare of forest area, and the preceding year the number of forest fire incidents increased to 2158.
One of the major reasons for the wide spread forest fires in the state of Uttarakhand is the dry pine leaves shed between the months of March to June, by pine trees spread over an area of more than five lakh hectare. These leaves are called Pirul, they are extremely flammable and emit highly injurious amounts of C02 when burnt unsupervised. During the dry months between March to June, these flammable Pirul are either ignited by a long dry weather accompanied by very high temperatures or by human negligence such are throwing match sticks, stubbing cigarettes, etc.
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From Fire Towards Light
Recently, under the National Mission on Himalayan Studies, a team of professors and students from IIT Roorkee and UPES Dehradun came together and worked on a project titled, Socio Economic Value Creation through Forest Bio Residue based Energy Generation in Alignment with UN’s SDGs, to address the issue of forest fires due to Pirul as well as to generate a source of livelihood for the people living in villages near these forests.
Upon thorough study and research, it was found that, these highly inflammable Piruls can be turned into an extremely valuable bio mass energy source if converted into briquettes. Briquette is a compressed block of coal, saw dust or any other combustible bio mass used for cooking or kindling a fire.
The next big challenge for this team was to come up with a briquette manufacturing equipment which is easy to handle, transport as well as cheap to manufacture. After three years of research and development in IIT Roorkee, two such models were developed based on the principle of Pascal’s Law. Today, these machines have been provided to the villagers in Chopra and Shyamkhet village in Uttarakhand.
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In Conclusion
Today, manufacturing of briquette from pirul has not only encouraged the villagers of Uttarakhand in the areas covered with pine cone forests to clear the pirul during the dry season but also provided them with a source of income. Pirul briquettes, since its introduction in the market has soon grabbed the interest of buyers as it is easy to ignite and easy to transport. Villagers have also started adding natural fragrance to the briquettes to sell them in the market as a replacement to scented incense sticks. Apart from having commercial values, these pirul briquettes have also reduced the villager’s dependence on firewood for cooking and keeping themselves warm. What was once a curse for the environment as well as cause of displacing hundreds of villagers every year has now turned into a source of income for them and has helped to reduce spread of forest fires as well.
Tags: #fire, #fires, #forest, #forestarea, #forestfire, #getgreengetgrowing, #gngagritech, #greenstories, #Piruls, #uttarakhand
