Research Projects

In recent times, there have been many occurrence of forest fire incidences in India as well as worldwide. These fire events are causing huge loss of property including bio-resources, bio-diversity, damage to public infrastructure and environmental pollution including global warming. Fuel is the most critical component of forest fire. Investigation of fuel properties of dominant plant species in Indian bio-geo-climatic conditions will be helpful to identify critical physical-chemical and thermos-chemical properties that have strong influence on "plant flammability". Estimating flammability of plant species would be very helpful in preparing flammability index (FI). The FI can be used to classify forest areas as highly flammable, moderately flammable and less flammable. This classification system will help forest department to scientifically manage forests so as to minimize fire events and prevent loss of bio-resources and properties. This proposal intends to select ten dominant species of the Simlipal Biosphere Reserve of Odisha and investigate the physical, chemical and thermo-chemical properties regarding FI index of the plant fuels and identify critical fuel parameters that will have strong influence on the plant flammability. Moreover, it is proposed to develop a flammability index (FI), which can be used by the forest department to classify the forest areas as per FI category. The FI classification system will be a helpful tool in the hand of forest department for better forest management to reduce potential fire events and minimize losses due to these events.