The number has touched 24,817 in 2016, a "really alarming" rise, from around 15,937 fires in 2015, says the report by Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, headed by Rajya Sabha MP Renuka Choudhary, submitted on December 16. The committee has suggested a national policy on managing forest fires.
The increase is seen even though 2015, considered a drought year, had seen a decline in frequency of forest fires of around 16 per cent.
The three central States of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh contribute a third of the forest fires. Madhya Pradesh has seen a nearly ten-fold increase, from just 294 in 2015 to more than 2,600 in 2016.
The committee was formed after a series of devastating forest fires earlier this year, including the prolonged one that charred 4,000 hectares of forest land across 13 districts of Uttarakhand.
Comment: Another 'prominent factor' could be outgassing, possibly 'sparked' by an increase in atmospheric electric discharge events, such as lightning strikes and other 'cosmic' ignition sources?
This week a rare winter wildfire ignited in Alaska, despite a foot of snow on the ground and forest fires broke out in Switzerland (in the dead of winter!)