Forest fires have hit the headlines far more frequently in the recent past. Much wildlife has perished along with timber land and the forest department remains a mute spectator to the whole event, owing much to its own inadequacy. Still everything is not lost! The forest department can well convert the hopeless situation to its advantage. The forest fires in rage have chafed the dreaded parasite "Lanatana," a weed that the Britishers got to India to landscape their houses with. It spread like an epidemic and engulfed large areas of forest land thus restricting aforestation projects.