As parts of the country reel under a heavy drought, Uttaranchal is fighting another summer menace: forest fires. Five lives have been lost and around 2,000 hectares of forest land gutted in the last two days in the state's Garhwal and Kumaon hills. The worst-affected regions include Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag, Tehri Garhwal, Pauri Garhwal and Chamoli districts of Garhwal region, and Pitthoragarh, Bageshwar and Almora districts of Kumaon. Pawan Hans, which recently started its helicopter service to the Kedarnath shrine from Agustmuni in Rudraparayag district, has cancelled all its four flights due to dense smoke in the Kedar valley.