20200411 A forest lockdown will fuel more fires
Thailand Nov 09 2020 “Forest”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 0 or unknown Injured : injured 0 or unknown
A forest lockdown will fuel more fires
Updated: 2020–Apr–11
An aerial view of a fire ravaging a forest in Chiang Mai last month. Picture courtesy of Chiang Mai Volunteer Drone Team
With strong wind and fast-approaching forest fires, a group of forest dwellers on Doi Mon Dok mountain in Chiang Mai’s Samoeng District are racing against time to stop the flames from engulfing their village.
“This is the ninth time the fires have erupted near our home,” said Prue Odashao, 49, a Karen grassroots environmentalist and community leader of Ban Pa Ka village. “The forest fires this year are the worst in my lifetime.”
The creeks on the mountains used to serve as fire barriers and a source of water to douse the flames. Not this year. The creeks dried up long before the official hot season began in April, obviously the result of global warming.
Ban Pa Ka is not alone in its struggle to save itself. Other hill people in the mountainous North are also fighting the worst forest fires in decades.
Like their peers in Ban Pa Ka, they are risking their lives day and night braving the wildfires with only primitive equipment such as leaf blowers, axes and knives to create fire breaks. Often, they need to resort to their ancestors’ traditional fire control techniques by using fire to extinguish the approaching flames. A sudden change of wind may cost them their life. Several villagers have already perished without state recognition nor support.
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With Chiang Mai’s revered Doi Suthep mountain on fire for months, national attention is on the plight of the city people who are suffocating in the “gas chamber” as firefighters face difficulties in fighting the near-impossible blazes.
Web Source: Bangkok Post
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1897615/a-forest-lockdown-will-fuel-more-fires