Porbandar/Ahmedabad, 7 January (H.S.): A fire has broken out in Juri forest near Ratanpar village, five km from Porbandar on the road from Porbandar to Somnath. The fire is so severe that the Porbandar-Somnath coastal highway has been closed for now. The fire brigade team is engaged in extinguishing the fire. After this incident, the forest department and police have also reached the spot. After the fire going out of control for the last four hours, the road has been diverted towards Chhaya via Ratanpar.

Currently, in view of the emergency situation, three fire fighters of the fire brigade from Upleta, one water tanker, Hathi Cement's fire fighter, Birla company's water tanker and additional water browser from Upleta have been called, but for the last four hours the fire is continuously going out of control.

Two days ago, a fire broke out in Juri forest. Today again an incident of fire has occurred. There have been more than seven incidents of fire in the last one week, while in the last one year, there have been more than 30 incidents of fire in the Oddar-Ratanpar Juri forest area.

The Forest Department and the Revenue Department have not been able to find out the cause of the fire till date. The fire department has described the fire as man-made.

There are a large number of trees in the Juri forest area and there are many dry trees too, due to which the fire took a fierce form in a few moments and the flames of the fire became visible far and wide. No details have been released regarding the cause of the fire. It is worth mentioning that incidents of fire often occur in this Juri forest area during the winter season.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar