All over the world, many forests face the damage from fire every year which demerits the forest wealth and also imbalances the ecosystem. Most of these fire eruptions in the forests are done intentionally or unintentionally through means of accidents. It not only serves danger to the forest but also to thousands of lives of the local. It becomes very important to involve communities in fire prevention and control.

With increasing population pressure, the forest cover of the country is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Along with various factors, forest fires are a major cause of degradation of forests. Forest fires are significant and one of the increasing contributory factors in the degradation of existing forest resources.

CAUSES OF FOREST FIRE
1. Deforestation activities which includes conversion of forestland to agriculture, pasture development etc.
2. Traditional slash and burn/shifting agriculture.
3. Setting of fires in forests by villagers for getting fresh blade of grass, fodder etc.
4. Intentionally setting up the fire for the purpose of collection of honey, Sal seeds, etc.
5. Forest/human habitation interface like fire set to burn leaves and other biomass from agriculture fields and fire set to scare the wildlife etc.
6. Conflicts over the land right claims and Fire caused by negligence.

Forest fires in the country are most likely to occur during summer months though the extent and type varies from state to state, type of forest as well as climatic conditions like prolonged spell of dry conditions or delay in arrival of monsoon etc.

PREVENTION AND CONTROL
At present, most of the states do not have any regular schemes/funds for prevention and control of forest fires. With minimum human resource at its disposal, the forest departments in most of the states are poorly equipped to prevent or control the spread of forest fires. This situation and the fact that forests are under tremendous pressure, due to increasing population pressure and hence commensurate demand of land, forest products etc necessitates exploration of alternatives.

Joint Forest Management (JFM) has implemented an important role in fire prevention and control. JFM has played a significant role in the context of institutional arrangements pertaining to forest management in India. The effective involvement of local communities in evolving sustainable forest management systems is being looked upon as an important approach to address the long-standing problems of deforestation and land degradation in India.

Local community also plays an important role in forest protection, and this participatory approach in which people co-operate with forest department in forest protection helps them in the form of economic benefits. People's view on the occurrence of forest fires is of vital importance in assessing the impact of community efforts at fire control. It is very important to make people realize the value of forests and its contribution to our living. An efficient motivation strategy for fire prevention requires an initial understanding of the cultural, socio-economic and psychological background of the harm such fires could create.