Nearly two-thirds of forest areas in Nagaland are either extremely, very highly or highly fire-prone, The Morung Express reported citing the biannual assessment of India’s forest status by the Forest Survey of India (FSI).

"Out of the total forest cover of 12,251 square kilometres in Nagaland, an area of 8,311.34 sq km, or 68.1%, was under the aforementioned three classes of forest fire proneness," the India State of Forest Report 2021 (ISFR 2021) informed.

The ISFER 2021 is prepared by the FSI, under the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.  

"Forest fire proneness is divided into five classes: extremely fire-prone, very highly fire-prone, highly fire-prone, moderately fire-prone, and less fire-prone," the report stated.

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It further added that class-wise, 2.88% (352.24 sq km) of the total forest cover is under extreme conditions, while an area of 3,129.20 sq km (or 25.54%) is under the very highly fire-prone classes.  

"The share of the highly fire-prone area is highest at 4,849.90 sq km, or 39.59% of the total forest cover area," the report added.

The report further stated that the three classes of fire proneness covered an area of 8,311.34 sq km, or 68.1% of the total forest area in Nagaland.

"Additionally, an area of 2,477.96 sq km of forest cover was slotted as moderately fire-prone, indicating that over 10,809 sq km (or 88.24%) of the total forest cover in Nagaland is prone to fire, ranging from moderate to extremely fire-prone," the report stated.

Meanwhile, 1,441.70 (or 11.76%) of the 12,252 sq km of forest cover in Nagaland was designated as less fire-prone.’

According to the report, the northeastern states have the highest risk of forest fires. Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Manipur have the "highest forest fire probability in terms of frequency of occurrence."

The report further stated that across India, 64.54% of the total forest cover of 7.13 lakh sq km has been designated as less fire-prone.

FSI’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) detected 1,248 forest fires in Nagaland from November 2019 to June 2020. From November 2020 to June 2021, it increased to 1,726.