In India, wildfires have raged on in the past few years as well, causing extensive damage. In February 2018, it took five days and the mobilisation of huge resources including Indian Air Force choppers to douse the fire at Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka. An estimated 4,800 hectares of forests were lost in the incident. The very next month, in March 2018, a group of trekkers got caught in a fatal wildfire at Theni, Tamil Nadu. The state went on to impose a ban on trekking in forests between February 15 to April 15, considered as fire season.
According to the India State of Forest Report 2019, over 30,000 incidents of forest fires were reported in India in 2019. Additionally, more than 36% of Indian forest cover (657,000 sq km area) is prone to frequent forest fires and of this, 10% are highly prone, according to a Forest Survey of India (FSI) report on fire prone forest areas. Around 21% of the total forest cover is high to extremely fire prone, adds the latest forest survey. The dry deciduous forests, which receive low rainfall, face 5-6 dry months and have nutrient poor soil, such as those in tropical and subtropical latitudes, are more vulnerable to fire compared to others. These areas are in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and in the southern states. Chir pine forests in hilly states are equally prone.
Objective of the Project
The objective is to design a new class of forest fire fighting vehicles which is capable of direct and indirect attack. The vehicle should effectively and efficiently increase the approaches done for fire fighting without involvement of lot of people.
The vehicle must function primarily as an attack vehicle while providing unparalleled vehicle and crew safety and survivability in forest fire and also maintain superior off-road capabilities for quickly reaching to attack site and vehicle should also poses appropriate fire suppression technology for the purpose of initial response in the front line of action.
Case Study Download:
• Design of a Quick Attack Vehicle......