Bhubaneswar, March 3 -- Bhubaneswar: The Simlipal Reserve Forest in Odisha burning red for over a week has made the State's fire management plan go up in smoke. The big howler here for the State is despite not in the top-10 states having the maximum vulnerability to forest fires, Odisha has the dubious distinction of topping the country in forest fires.

Though the forest inferno timeline in Odisha starts from February third week, data with the Forest Survey of India reveals that with a whopping 11,717 fire alerts, Odisha topped the country during the period November 2020 - March 1, 2021.

2021 WILDFIRE IN ODISHA IN GRAPHS

Odisha now tops the country with a count of 296 active large fires in the State as of March 3, 2021. The worst affec...