Fire breaks out in Annamalai hills in Tiruvannamalai

Fire breaks out in Annamalai Hills forest near Arunachaleswara temple, destroying acres of land and wildlife species.

A fire broke out in the reserve forests of Annamalai hills along the girivalam path near Arunachaleswara temple in Tiruvannamalai on Saturday.

Forest officials said that around 6 a.m, devotees, who were walking on the 14 km girivalam path, saw fire in the RF near the foothills. Immediately, they alerted the police, who in turn informed the local forest officials.

After battling for more than two hours, forest officials and fire fighters managed to douse the fire. More than one acre of forest land was gutted in the incident. A variety of wild plant species were destroyed in the fire. The hills are home for spotted deer, sloth bear, Indian gaur. “Some miscreants would have set fire to the thick bushes near the foothills that have a lot of encroachments, mainly huts. Surveillance in the RFs around the hills have been increased,” G.P. Saravanan, forest range officer (Tiruvannamalai town), told The Hindu.

Tiruvannamalai range has seven RFs including Chippakadu, Athipakkam, Adi Annamalai and Sorakolathur, covering 13,000 hectares. The Annamalai hills comes under Adi Annamalai RF with over 900 hectares, spreading over 9 km radius. The hills are 2,668 feet-high from the sea level.   Land around the foothills to a distance of 6 km belongs to the revenue department. Encroachments, mostly houses, remain the challenge to forest officials.