A 'fiery' mission accomplished

By Dasu Kesava Rao

HYDERABAD, JAN. 27 It was a mission that had to be accomplished at any cost -- a mission as challenging as picking a needle in a haystack.

The top brass of the Forest Department did it. No way they can ignore because the orders were straight from the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu. He was returning from Tirupati the other day when flying over the Nallamalas he noticed fires in the forest below and immediately on reaching Hyderabad, alerted the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Mr. K. Subba Rao.

Now, the problem was how to locate the fire in a forest as big and sprawling as the Nallamalas. On the basis of available information -- approximate time the chopper flew over the spot and the distance it covered at that time on the Tirupati- Hyderabad air route -- the forest officials simulated the helicopter flight on GIS (geographical information system) and figured out the place to be somewhere in Amarabad plateau in Mahabubnagar district.

Eight search parties armed with digital cameras and handsets were on the job within hours, even as Mr. Subba Rao and his officers rushed to the spot. A big fire in the heart of the country's biggest tiger sanctuary was the last thing they would want to happen. The forest was already vulnerable to fires because of a very long dry spell. Foresters made enquiries with villagers in Vatvarlapalli, Vajralapenta, Kunchalapalli and many other hamlets. Mr. Rao heaved a sigh of relief after knowing there was no major fire anywhere.

But enquiries led them to Kudichintala Bailu around midnight when the locals confirmed that heaps of redgram husk were burnt on a four-hectare plot in a deep gorge near Eegalapenta earlier in the day. Further, around the same time, the A.P. Transco took up `controlled burning' to remove obstacles for the overhead 400 kv lines. These were apparently the fires that caught the eye of Mr. Naidu as he overflew the spot. "Both are minor ground fires, but they can appear awesome when seen from above", the officials said.

Forty-eight hours later, Mr. Subba Rao and his team gave a power- point presentation to the Chief Minister on the mission. An impressed Mr. Naidu directed the officials to keep a vigilant eye for possible fires. He wanted the department to have a daily report of the status of fire protection.

Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Rao said: "This is one of the instances of successful adoption of high technology available to us. We could have used GPS (global positioning system) to locate the source, but for the absence of latitude-longitude details."

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