The warning in landscape fires

A study in The Lancet that estimates 2.5 million deaths in India between 2000 and 2019 were due to air pollution from landscape fires should bring home the severity of the human costs of forest fires and crop stubble burning. The science on pollution-related morbidity and mortality has been clear for a long time, especially the impact of pollutants like particulate matter of less than 2.5 micron width (PM2.5) and ozone on the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. The Lancet study now gives us a grasp on the scale of the impact of such fires in the country.

The intensity and scale typical of landscape fires — occurring in natural and cultural landscapes, with the latter rooted in planned human activity — means the resulting pollution isn’t limited to their immediate vicinities: The pollutants travel across hundreds of kilometres and affect distant populations. The frequent summer wildfires in the forest districts of Uttarakhand and Odisha that cause pollution readings to shoot up in adjoining districts illustrate this, as does the annual winter feature of the air quality index hitting “severe” in the national capital when Punjab farmers burn crop stubble to prepare for winter sowing. The latter, to be sure, is aggravated by a range of other factors, including vehicular emissions, and road/construction dust. For a country with a rising non-infectious disease burden, landscape fires nevertheless present a significant risk.

Given these fires are largely preventable, the Lancet study’s numbers represent a tragedy compounded. Experts have been saying for a while that forest fires can be controlled better with the right kind of community and State engagement, a recommendation that remains largely ignored so far. Similarly, there are many prescribed cures for farm fires, from waste-to-energy solutions to mechanised disposal of crop stubble. Most of these solutions require the State to play a far more active role than it has done so far. However, while forest fires in the country have seen multiple peaks since 2010, in the case of farm fires, inaction marks the conversation on pre-empting the fires; multiple administrations are happy to pass the buck. Post facto measures, such as the Graded Response Action Plan for NCR pollution, have proved painfully inadequate.

All these challenges, of course, are exacerbated by the climate crisis worsening local factors that raise the probability of landscape fires. Without proactive control measures and mitigation efforts, the mortality from such air pollution is only likely to rise.

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