Thrissur (Kerala): For the temporary guards and watchers who constitute the lowest rung on the ladder of official forest management hierarchy, summers are the worst phase in their not so attractive career. There would be a spurt in wildfires by the beginning of February each year and dousing the fires in the blazing sun involves a lot of challenges.

Most of the terrains would remain inaccessible and getting a gulp of drinking water in the middle of the fire fighting stands as a matter of sheer luck. By the time the fires getting doused, they would be summoned for other emergencies like chasing out crop-raiding wild elephants from agricultural fields. To them, the assignments are always risky.The wildfire tragedy in which three tribal forest watchers were charred to death at Kottambathur near Desamangalam in Kerala’s Thrissur district on Sunday afternoon has once again brought into focus the plight of these frontline forest field staff who take enormous risks in protecting the country’s rich flora and fauna.’I spoke to him around 11.30 am on Sunday over the phone. He inquired about me and our four-year-old son Dhyan, who was born after nine years of waiting. It was about two weeks ago, he visited us at home. After that, he was busy with fighting wildfires. Before winding up the call, he said he was about to climb a hill region to douse forest fires. The very next morning, I saw his dead body in the local hospital,’ said tribal woman Indira, wife of charred forest guard KU Divakaran, struggling hard to contain her emotions. Hailing from a tribal colony inside the famous Parambikulam Tiger Reserve, it was only recently that he constructed a house at Vazhachal near Thrissur and shifted his family there.Beat forest officer, N Noushad, who had a providential escape from the massive fire, looked still in the grip of the rude shock. He managed to rescue a forest guard badly injured in the fire, NP Achu, but failed to trace the three others killed in the incident. According to Kerala’s Forest Minister, K Raju, the Kottambathur incident was the 99th among forest fires that took place in the state since January 1. Fifteen among them occurred in the last seven days and most of the forest areas of the state are now reeling under a cruel and blistering summer.In Kottambathur, the tragedy had occurred in a forest area leased out to public sector Hindustan Newsprint Limited (HNL) to grow trees of its choice as raw material, mainly acacia. As the company remains locked out, the plantation remained in an abandoned state with a lot of thick dry wild grass. As the plantation was located in an isolated area, the fire outbreak remained unnoticed in the beginning. The senior officials were not vigilant even though a similar massive wildfire occurred on January 30 last year, inside the same plantation, causing widespread destruction. All the three deceased were poor and under-educated local tribals who formed part of a 30 member team assigned with the task of dousing the fire from around noon on Sunday. ‘All the three deceased begun their work after reaching my forest fringe house and quenching their thirst. Among them, Sankaran seemed worried as there was nobody at home to take care of his two school-going kids. His wife was away attending a funeral and the emergency situation would not allow him to reach home in time. I tried to contact them over cell-phone when the fires started engulfing the whole region. But there was no response,’ said a local farmer, K Sudheesh.K Sankaran had a small grocery store before being selected as temporary staff by the forest department five years ago. He sold the shop and joined the team. His friend and neighbour KV Velayudhan, a coolie worker, too joined the team around the same period. Both Sankaran and Velayudhan used a common two-wheeler to reach the office from home and the way back. Both Sankaran and Velayudhan had fallen victims to the forest fires. Kerala government has announced an interim compensation of ₹7.5 lakhs each to the families of the dead. A decision on giving a permanent job to a dependent of each of the deceased would be taken after discussions at various official levels.Though forest officials and researchers have confirmed over the years that the fires which engulf the forests every summer are not spontaneous and they all are manmade, no Indian state is adopting scientific measures to douse the fires and to mitigate the damages including the irreplaceable loss of lives of the poor and underprivileged firefighters. On almost all occasions, the victims of the wildfire tragedies are temporary forest protective staff constituting mainly of the economically and socially weak youngsters of the local forest fringe tribal colonies.’They are doing a tough job involving high risk. But they continue to remain as a bunch of poorly paid, under-equipped, untrained and often demotivated workforce. Other than fighting wildfires, they have to undertake a number of functions including…