Visuals showed children being evacuated from the Pinegrove school as the flames licked the walls of the school.
Highlights
- Children from Pinegrove School have been evacuated
- Thousands have been fighting the forest fires for weeks in Uttarakhand
- The fires have spread to neighbouring states of J&K, Himachal Pradesh
The fires that have been raging through the forests of northern India reached a boarding school in Kasauli, a popular hill town in Himachal Pradesh.
Visuals showed children being evacuated from the Pinegrove school as the flames licked the walls of the school.
The children sat on the ground, their eyes watering, their nose and mouth covered against thick smoke that almost covered the entire resort town.
The school fire was put out after nearly an hour.
Thousands have been trying to tackle the forest fires that have been burning for three months in Uttarakhand.
The fires have spread to neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
The school fire was put out after nearly an hour.
Pockets of fire have been seen at Himachal Pradesh, where dry leaves that have fallen to the ground are burning in Solan, Shimla and Kullu districts. Unusually high temperatures are being blamed.
Lower regions in Himachal like Una have seen the temperature go as high as 42 degrees Celsius and the temperature in Shimla is the highest of the season at 27.5 degrees C, about five degrees above normal.
The fires that have been raging through the forests of northern India reached the boarding school in Kasauli.
have been difficult because of poor visibility and smoke even though 70 per cent of the fires have been put out.
Personnel of the National Disaster Response Force, the Army and the Air Force, are working to fight the blaze along with thousands of firefighters.
The Air Force has deployed MI-17 helicopters to carry water from lakes and help douse the fires.