2 Villagers who are in their early 30’s were arrested by the forest officials from the Bandipur Tiger Reserve Forest, both villagers are suspected the people behind the fire that burned around 10,000 hectares of forest, the damage is said to be irreparable.

Range Forest Officer Puttaswami, from the Gopalaswami Hill Limits, said that: “Two villagers have been arrested and sent to judicial custody. They had lit a fire in order to stop tigers from entering into their village as they were being spotted in the area for a month or so.”

The villagers were seen on one of the 4 places from where the fire was believed to have started out. The 2 villagers were seen by the Forest Watchers, the officials added that they were on the run since the fire started out.

The fire that broke out in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve started out on February 22. Both villagers and the Fire Department tried their best to stop the fire from spreading, but their efforts were not effective against the raging fire in the reserve, the Fire Department had to call in army choppers to stop the fire. A request was sent to CM HD Kumaraswamy on 25 February 2019.

The army choppers poured 19 thousand liters of water by using the Bambi Jacket that helped the fire to stop.