NEW DELHI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- One more person has died due to the raging wildfire in India's Uttarakhand, taking the total deaths to five in the last three days, according to officials on Monday.
The 65-year-old woman died on Sunday at hospital due to the burns she got from fighting a forest fire reaching her farm in the Pauri Garhwal district.
On Saturday a 28-year-old woman succumbed to burn injuries after she tried to douse a fire near a pine resin factory in Almora district. Before that on Friday three laborers from Nepal were killed in the forest fire in the same area.
Local authorities are trying hard to contain the raging fire.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has asked district magistrates to give orders to completely ban the burning of all types of fodder for a week. Urban authorities have also been asked to ban the burning of solid waste in or near forests.
Media reports quoting Director of the India Meteorological Center in Dehradun Bikram Singh said that there is a possibility of rain in the state from Tuesday, which will intensify from May 11.
Singh said this may help extinguish the forest fire in the state.
The state's forest fire was first reported in the third week of April in the Nanda range, which has subsequently spread downwards.
A local media report said that since November last year, there have been 910 incidents of forest fire recorded in the state, affecting about 1,145 hectares of forest in total. ■
