Disaster: After more than 24 hours, the forest fire above Athang’s gewog office in Wangdue was finally brought under control at around 3pm yesterday.

The fire that broke out toward the evening of November 10 has destroyed almost a hundred acres of forest in Athang. Forest officials are yet to measure the area destroyed by fire.

Chencho Dendup, a forest official, said about 65 people including local leaders of Athang, forest officials, Desuups, local people and police personnel of Zawakha police-outpost battled the fire since the afternoon of November 10.

Chencho said that the fire could not be put out due to difficult terrain.

“Yesterday, we started at 5am and battled the fire without having lunch and finally we managed to control the fire at 3pm,” said Chencho Dendup.

He said that fire fighters managed to control the fire before it caught the chirpine zone at mountaintop.

Forest officials are investigating the cause of fire.

This is the first fire incident in Wangdue this year. On average at least 12 forest fire incidents occur across 15 gewogs of Wangdue every year.

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