One forest employee has been injured and several thousand trees have been burnt so far in the massive forest fire that is raging in three forest compartments of the Kuntawara forest range here.
The employee, identified as Harbans Lal, sustained severe burn injuries while dousing the fire, a department official said.
The forest fire that has been going on for the past few days have engulfed compartment number 44, 45 and 46 in the forest range, official sources said.
“The forest range is an inaccessible area where you don’t have roads hence you cannot take fire extinguishers there,” a forest department official said.
Meanwhile sources said that the forest fire could be an insider job so as to hide the proof of illegal felling of frees in the forest division.
“Illegal cutting of trees was rampant in the forest and to hide the proof by burning the stubs of the trees the forest fire could have been started,” informed a source.
There were two other similar incident, in the first incident a fire engulfed the Kandoth forest area in the Charala forest range in the Bhaderwah district.
Also, around 11 livestock perished when the shed they were kept in caught fire due to possible short-circuit in the Latti village of Udhampur district late last night.
