70 community and national forests affected by fire in Parbat till Wednesday

Parbat, April 25: Parbat, the district in the Gandaki Province, continues to report the incidents of forest fire since the last week of March. The wildfires so far destroyed 1,400 hectares of forest area. Division Forest Office’s assistant forest officer, Ram Bahadur BK said so far the fire destroyed forest area spreading to 1416.6 hectares. The first incidents of forest fire were reported from the Deurali community forest at Jaljala rural municipality-1 and Simlatechaur community forest at Jaljala-5. Till Wednesday, 70 community and national forests were affected by bushfires. It is said, this year, the cases of wildfire is more than of the last year. The General Code of Nepal has defined the act to cause a forest fire as a criminal offence. Though Forest Act, 2049 BS (1993) and the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, 2029 BS (1973) have provisioned a jail sentence and fine for causing the forest fire, the legal provisions against it are yet to be implemented in the district, it is said. The forest area in the district covers 27,640 (51 percent) of its total land 54,210 hectares. —