Surya Khadka, a resident of ward 2 of Yangbarak Rural Municipality in Taplejung district, was returning home from Amarpur in neighbouring Panchthar district on Sunday. When he reached near his village in Thechambu, he saw a massive forest fire just below his settlement. He could not go to his village through a foot trail near Kabeli Bazaar due to the wild fire. Instead, he took photos of the wild fires and went home through the Khahare area, taking a comparatively longer detour.

Khadka posted the wild fire pictures on social media and urged villagers to gather and help douse the inferno. The locals gathered at the incident site and attempted to contain the fire. “The villagers responded promptly and attempted to control the fire. Fortunately, we could stop the bush fire from entering the settlement,” said Khadka. The fire was brought under control on Monday.

The security personnel of Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and the locals had a tough time controlling another fire in the forest of Nangkholyang in ward 2 of Yangbarak on the same day. The fire started near the Tamor river bank and spread rapidly due to strong winds. Despite the challenges, the security personnel and the villagers managed to control the forest fire with the help of a fire engine from the Phungling Municipality.

They created a fire line and conducted controlled burns to prevent the forest fire from spreading towards Nangkholyang settlement. “The settlement could have been at high risk if the security personnel and locals had not doused the fire on time,” said Suraj Ojha, district chairman of the Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal. According to him, effective coordination among security personnel from Mewakha Police Post and the local residents helped control the fire.

The incidents are not isolated occurrences. Forest fires ravage hectares of forest land in several forests in the district every year.

Besides Yangbarak, forest fires have been reported in Mikkakhola Rural Municipality, Phungling Municipality and Meringden Rural Municipality this year.

The Division Forest Office in Taplejung estimates that wildfires destroyed around 500 hectares of forest in the current fiscal year.

“We are assessing the data regarding the fire incidents. It is estimated that around 400 to 500 hectares of forestland have been damaged by the wildfires,” said Parameshwar Pasawan, the forest officer. According to him, the fire incidents will continue for some months causing further destruction.

The wildfire season in Nepal generally starts in November-December and continues until the onset of monsoon, which hits the country in mid-June. Though forest fires are classified as natural disasters, only a fraction of them occur naturally. The majority of incidents result from human causes—poachers set fire to forests to disorient wild animals and farmers start fires to clear land for farming. Discarded cigarette butts are also among the biggest causes of fires in Nepal.

Fire incidents—both wildfire and house fire—occur every dry season in Taplejung, a mountain district of Koshi Province, causing a huge loss of life and property. However, the local units and other authorities concerned are not well prepared. They are not well equipped and do not have trained human resources to deal with fire incidents.

“Fires usually start in various forests of Taplejung from November-December, but they do not cause much damage. But the forest becomes dry with dried leaves in March/April, so the wildfires cause a lot of damage,” said Harka Bahadur Magar, a local of Phungling-8.

According to the District Police Office in Taplejung, there are no human casualties caused by fires in the district this year. The bush fire in Bichgaun forest in ward 11 of Phungling Municipality a few weeks ago damaged pipes of a drinking water project, black cardamom gardens and trees.

A natural disaster management committee has been formed under the leadership of the chief district officer at the district-level and a similar committee functions in each local unit to control various natural disasters, including fire. But their efforts to control fire incidents have so far been ineffective due to a lack of necessary trained human resources and equipment.

“Lack of fire engines, trained manpower and limited or no road access pose challenges in controlling fires. It has not rained in the area for months, so the risk of forest fire is quite high this year in Taplejung,” said Yuk Hangbir Hangam, chairman of Meringden Rural Municipality.

There are vast forests in Sidingwa, Mikwakhola and Phaktalung areas. “Some forests are in remote areas. There will be no way out to control the fire there. The wildfires will be controlled only after rains or after destroying the entire forest areas,” said Ojha.