13 Woodfire

Once I came to the Hotel, the young hotel manager was asking me, if I can help him and others to extinguish a wood fire. I looked up the mountain and saw, that it was heavily burning. I jumped in my shoes, grabbed my bag and the torchlight. The motorcycle roared up a small street and suddenly I saw a man with a gun pointing towards us. We stopped!
Luck, it was a friend of Radeek, he came also to extinguish the fire. A Park official joined us after some time.
I was thinking, "How can we extinguish a fire, without water, chainsaw or axe?". The Indians had nothing with them either. We crawled up a step mountain, down under bushes and other vegetation. The official was shooting one time into the air, because there can be tigers. Also Elephants attack, if you disturb them. (For that reason the strange photos with the gun!)
When we reached the first fire, I saw, that just the leaves on the floor and some smaller branches are burning. The big trees were not affected seriously. But still the fire had to be extinguished, because the leaves are the earth of the future. Here they face an erosion problem to, wood fires are just worsening the situation. So I made my small contribution towards the global warming. But still my traveling and internet activity causes much more, than I was able to save in this small effort.

To extinguish the fire actually was simple, the Indian people just broke some small branches and used them to sweep away the try leaves on the floor. So the fire was not able to go further, because on blank earth it can find nourishment. So we were sweeping around the fires, always a little bit away, because the smoke is not very fine and healthy.
It took us some 3 to 4 hours to finish all, going through the middle of the wood in a very steep area. Sometimes I slipped, because it was so steep.

Double click to enlarge!