‘Mischief, negligence’ behind Margalla Hills fires: CDA

ISLAMABAD: After a series of forest fires that engulfed Margalla Hills in recent days, a top official in Islamabad has revealed that the blaze incidents are in fact owed to human acts and are not a natural occurrence.

"All the fires are due to someone's mischief or negligence," Capital Development Authority Director General (CDA DG) Irfan Niazi said while speaking on Geo News' programme "Geo Pakistan" on Monday.

The official's remarks come as rescue workers have been engaged in large-scale firefighting operations in the hills surrounding the federal capital throughout last week. In the latest incident, authorities doused a forest fire in the hills on Sunday.

Separately, a fire also erupted in the forest area spreading over an area of 15 to 20 acres located in the Baghar Sharif area of Rawalpindi's Kahuta Tehsil. Islamabad's district administration, last week, even took three people into custody on suspicion of Margalla Hills "arson". "Three persons have been arrested on suspicion of setting fire on Margalla Hills," Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Irfan Nawaz Memon had said.

Continuing on elaborating on the causes of forest fires, CDA DG Niazi said that the phenomenon requires three primary elements namely high temperature, high-speed winds and fuel. "Since this [Margalla Hills] is a national park, fuel is already available in the shape of dry leaves and branches. In such a situation, due to someone's mischief or negligence, this can lead to a fire," he said while pointing towards mischief as there were no species of trees in Islamabad that can catch fire by themselves.

It is to be noted that parts of Pakistan have seen temperatures as high as 52.2 degrees Celsius (126 F) over the last week, with South Asia sweltering in a hotter summer this year — a trend scientists say has been worsened by human-driven climate change.

Machinery unable to reach fire sites Commenting on the preventive measures against forest fires, the official highlighted that the authorities ensure additional safety measures and engage the workforce as there is an increased chance of fire by mid-June — which is in fact declared as "fire season" due to the increase in temperature.

On the difficulties faced by the firefighting teams, he said that despite using fire extinguishers and bowsers, most of their machinery was unable to reach fire sites and that the personnel had to reach the blaze on foot.

"Regular visitors of Margalla Hills know that around 20 villages are located there, so in two to three incidents of fires, the blaze got near them," Niazi said while stressing that their firefighting strategy priorities populated areas.

"So far, there has been no loss of life. During the previous years, we had 300-350 people in the workforce for extinguishing fires. However, we have increased it to 400 this year. When it comes to equipment, the hurdle is that these forests are on a mountain, so they cannot reach the site," he added.