India, April 14 -- As much as 1,077.7 sq km or 44.15% of Goa's forest cover is "very highly susceptible", 491.58 sq km (21.35%) "highly susceptible", and 543 sq km (15.62%) moderately susceptible to fires, an ICAR-Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute vulnerability mapping study has found. The study published in the Journal of Environmental Management in March concluded that open and moderately dense forests were highly susceptible to forest fires, with the distance from human settlement being the other crucial factor.

Scientists A R Uthappa, A Raizada, and Bappa Das studied data on past fires to analyse criteria such as forest density, distances from human settlement, nearest road, elevation, slope, direction of the land, surf...