Hundreds of trees were destroyed in a massive fire which engulfed a forested area in Malanggad of Maharashtra’s Thane district on Thursday evening, officials said on Friday.
The patch on the Malanggad Hill in Kumbharli village under Ambernath taluka, around 50 kilometres from Mumbai, caught fire at around 6.00pm and the blaze engulfed a major area.
“The fire was reported on a major patch of land on Malanggad mountain on Thursday evening. It took over six hours to douse this fire which was finally doused around 12.50am,” a forest department officer said requesting anonymity.
“Many trees have died in this fire. However, we have not still estimated the damage to the flora or the cause of the fire,” the officer said.
This is the second time a fire has been reported from the area in at least a year.
Eighty acres of land, where several trees had been planted in a plantation drive, was destroyed in a fire in Mangrul village near Malanggad in February last year.
Repeated fires on this mountain have led to suspicion that people have deliberately started fires in the forested areas.
In another incident, a fire was reported on a garbage heap behind Modi Compound in Bhiwandi on Thursday. However, no one was injured in this fire, which took more than three hours to douse.
“The fire broke out on a heap of garbage around 10.00pm and the situation was brought under control around 1.30am. There was no damage to life or property,” a fire official from Bhiwandi said.
