Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The rise of wildfire across the forests in Similipal has yielded a situation for the government to control the losses. But a Central team has headed to Similipal to take care of the situation in the tiger reserve where the Odisha Government alleges to have brought the situation under control.
The two members of the three-member Central team formed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), headed to Similipal from Bhubaneswar to take stock of the situation.
The members include National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) IG (forest) Amit Mallick and Deputy Director-General ofMoEF&CC regional office Subrat Mohapatra and the team was followed by the divisional forest officer of Karanjia. The team has been asked to camp in Odisha till the forest fires are brought under complete control and the situation becomes absolutely normal.
According to the report, the satellite-based fire alarm system of the Forest Survey of India (FSI) discovered 1,048 fire points across Odisha as contrasted to 497 points of now. Even wildfires have plunged other forests apart from Similipal like the ones in Swabhiman Anchal of Malkangiri. The firefighters and forest staff are working in boats to extinguish the flames.
But the head of the State-level task force on forest fire management and former PCCF Sandeep Tripathy informed that only 597 of the total fire points are in forests and the forest fires have been established in the Similipal biosphere where only two fire points were detected against 24 on 10th March.
They further informed that the interspersed entrance of the State government has commenced to the containment of fire in Similipal and other parts of the State. Even parts of Similipal also experienced rain which is assumed to limit any further propagation of fire in the tiger reserve. The prognostication of seasonal rain by the IMD for the next three days will also help to prevent flare-ups in Odisha.
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