The Centre has thrown its weight behind the Nagaland and Manipur governments’ efforts to douse the wildfire that has been raging for the past few days in Dzukou Valley, a popular tourist and trekking destination located on the inter-state border.

This became evident from the tweets of Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh and the increasing involvement of the Indian Air Force and the NDRF in the fire-fighting operation.

Located at an altitude of 2,452 m, the Valley is a popular with both tourists and trekkers but has suffered alarming damage due to the fire. It is a four-hour trek from Kohima.

Johnny Ruangmei, the Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority OSD, told The Telegraph on Friday evening that three more IAF choppers will be joining the dousing exercise from Saturday, taking the number of choppers involved in the operation to four.

Five more teams of NDRF personnel will also join the fire-fighting operation from Saturday while three drones will be used to assess the damage caused to the Valley because of the fire which has been raging at multiple points but the good news is that local volunteers and government agencies have managed to check the spread by cutting firelines, Ruangmei said.

“The fire is still raging but has not spread on the Nagaland side but because of strong winds it could spread. This is why we will be scaling up the operations by involving more IAF choppers and NDRF teams from Saturday,” the OSD of NSDMA said. A team of NDRF consists of 60 personnel.

Manipur chief minister Singh said on Friday that Union home minister Amit Shah had called him to discuss the Dzukou Valley fire and “assured” all necessary assistance from the home ministry to “contain the situation at earliest.”

Singh had on Thursday requested the NDRF, Army and the Assam Rifles to assist in extinguishing the wildfire, which “might probably have started about 2-3 days ago from the Nagaland side and crossed over to Manipur side”.

Singh tweeted, “I, on behalf of the people of Manipur, thank Hon’ble Union HM Shri @AmitShahJi for his timely intervention to contain the wildfire at Dzuko Valley. It is indeed very reassuring that under the leadership of @narendramodi Ji & Amit Shah Ji, the people of Manipur are in safe hands.”

Apart from the army and NDRF personnel, volunteers along with local populace are also helping fight the fire, which was first, reported on December 29 in Kohima but later spread to Senapati district in neighbouring Manipur.

Shillong-based IAF spokesman Wing Commander Ratnakar Singh told this newspaper that a chopper Mi-17V5 have been deployed to assist fight the fire since Thursday after it was requisitioned by the Nagaland government.

Manipur chief minister had on Thursday conducted an aerial survey of the Dzukou Valley in Senapati district.

According to him, the wildfire at Dzukou Valley is very alarming now and this needs immediate attention before it spreads towards Mt. Iso in Manipur.