Two women from the villages of Kola and Jameri in district Pauri Garhwal died while trying to fight the forest fires, according to Sachchidanand Bharati of the Doodhatoli Lok Vikas Sansthan (DLVS), a voluntary group in Ufrainkhal village of the district that works on regeneration of forests in the region. His organisation has been trying to mobilise people to protect forests. "Apart from forests with trees that are not very vulnerable to fires, we have even managed to protect significant parts of pine forests this year,' Bharati notes.

Since 1995, DLVS has been working on a traditional system of harvesting water in the hills known as chaal , in which small pits are dug along the slopes of hills to store rainwater. This water remains in the pits right up to the summer. The chaal system had been almost forgotten in the past 100 years. After reading about chaal s in a book written by Anupam Mishra, head of the environmental cell of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, some organisations in Uttarakhand, including DLVS, started mobilising people to build chaal s. There are about 1,000 chaal s in the region now. "Forests where chaal s have been made put up a strong resistance to fires this year,' Bharati informs.

"Water stored in chaal s is used to put out forests fires. Chaal s increase the moisture in the soil, preventing the fires from spreading. They also promote biodiversity as forests regenerate on their own,' adds Anupam Mishra.