LNP – Ella bush fire spreading

Huge boulders in the Rock Hill forest reserve have cracked and are at risk of rolling down onto the Ella-Wellawaya main highway due to the intense heat of the bush fire in the forest reserve that has spread for more than two days. 

The Badulla District Disaster Management Unit said although the fire had been brought under control the boulders in several areas have developed cracks and warned motorists and pedestrians to be cautious when passing through the endangered area.

The bush fire that  broke out on Thursday (13) in the Rock Hill area  in the Rawana Ella forest reserve, a highly sensitive environmental zone rich in biodiversity,  spread over a vast area of more than 600 acres for three days due to the dry weather and strong winds.
 
Police, the security forces, the Ella Pradeshiya Sabha, the Departments  of Wildlife and Forest Conservation and the Bandarawela Urban Council Fire Brigade launched a massive round-the-clock operation during the three days to douse the fire.   

Environmentalists pointed out that rare species of animal and pants would have been destroyed by the fire that has destroyed more than 600 acres of the forest reserve. 

Badulla District Secretary Panduka Sri Prabhath Abeywardene said the spread of the  fire could be brought under control by  creating fire gaps. He said the cause of the fire was yet to be established, but could have been probably due to human activities.

Badulla Division DIG Sujth Wedamulla said a police team was deployed to conduct investigations to arrest any individuals who may have set fire to the forest reserve. 

Meanwhile, the officials who launched the operation to douse the fire said that in the past helicopters were used to douse the fire by spraying water, but this time it could not be doused before it spread over a vast area for want of helicopters.   

However, Minister of Tourism Ruwan Ranasinghe, in response to a question from the media on not deploying any Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) helicopters to spray water, said that the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence had consulted the relevant officials and that they were of the opinion that spraying water by helicopters had been a failure. They pointed out that a helicoper fully loaded with fuel can spray only two buckets of water, and quite often the target is missed due to the strong winds. 

“We decided not to use this method which had failed in the past,” Minister Ranasinghe said.