It has taken four helicopters of which two were MI-17 helicopters, deployment of 100 Air Force personnel, the intervention of the Center by sending the Director General of Forests and DG of Fire services from Delhi, the TTD Chairman and MP Kanumuri Bapiraju pull up his socks after realizing that he needs to be present in times of emergency and all this along with the Governor’s intervention- to partially subside the fire that has been raging since the past 3 days in the Seshachalam forest range in holy hills of Thirumala.

The local forest department’s inadequacy in support staff and equipment to fight fires at this large scale has come into light again when they were unable to contain the fire and that too by using only two fire engines and 3 water tankers. This is not the first time that a forest fire of such magnitude broke out. In 2012, a major fire broke out, destroying close to 200 acres of forests and it took around 10 hours to bring it under control. Surprisingly the ecosystem there  is taken care of by the TTD as it into planting rare trees and preserving  the forest. With crores of donations that it receives the TTD authorities in conjunction with the Forest and Fire departments could consider setting up proper advanced fire detecting systems and also have adequate firefighting equipment at the appropriate places for putting out these fires which come at the onset of summer.