Summary:
Forest officials, including range officers and divisional forest officers (DFO), will receive real time SMS alerts about the exact location of forest fires. more-inWith summer round the corner, the Forest Department is planning to make use of NASA’s satellite communication system to detect forest fires. Kesavan told The Hindu that SMS-based alerts would help reduce the response time to tackle forest fires and marshal resources to reduce damage. Officials said the FSI had been alerting State Forest Departments against forest fires by the MODIS sensor on board the Aqua and Terra satellites of NASA since 2004. Some 165 forest fires occurred in Kerala in 2016 with the highest number recorded in Wayanad and Idukki (30 each), followed by Palakkad, 28..