THANE: The green cover of city experienced yet another forest fire on Saturday afternoon. With this, Yeoor has lost more than 1.5 hectares of green cover in the last two weeks. This comes even though extensive forest fire management preparations were made. Forest officials are yet to find out the exact cause of the fires.A minor fire broke out at Chenna about a fortnight ago which destroyed 20 gunthas of forest cover, while the second fire destroyed over 1 hectares of green cover in Manpada region on Saturday afternoon. However, the fires were restricted to a small section of the range and was stopped from spreading further as the officials adopted a new technology as part of their management plan."Over the past few months, we have been drawing fire lines across the range that restricts any fire from spreading to the block beyond the one it was started in. Additionally, our officials have been patrolling the range with new fire blowers that enable them to reach the area quickly and douse the flames," said R Pawar, range forest officer (Yeoor)."As the fire in Chenna range was small, it could be handled by a small team. However, in the Manpada incident, a team of 12 officials took a few hours to douse the flames," he said.Further, the forest officials have not only been constantly redrawing fire lines in the range, but have also started creating awareness among locals residing in Adivasi padas within the eco-sensitive zone "We don't know the cause of the fire as there was nobody spotted near it. However, all the fires are manmade and they spread fast because of the rise in temperature. In order to prevent anyone from creating this first spark that then goes wild, we have been reaching out to tribals here and discussing the disturbing result of deforestation ," Pawar said."In addition to the awareness drive, our team keeps redrawing fire lines to prevent the fire from spreading further. While the camera traps in the area hasn't found any culprit yet, we will keep checking it so that we can find out the accused and arrest them," he added.Over the past few months, we have been drawing fire lines across the range that restricts any fire from spreading to the block beyond the one it was started in. Our officials have been patrolling the range with new fire blowers that enable them to reach the area quickly and douse the flamesOver the past few months, we have been drawing fire lines across the range that restricts any fire from spreading to the block beyond the one it was started in. Our officials have been patrolling the range with new fire blowers that enable them to reach the area quickly and douse the flames

Stay updated with all the Latest Thane headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.