To stop, reduce and prevent forest fires in the state, a city-based green activist has written to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray urging him to create a network of ‘Van Mitras’ (friends of the forest) in each forest circle. 

In the letter environmentalist Stalin D of NGO Vanashakti has requested the CM for his intervention in adopting innovative and effective steps to curb the instances of forest. The incidents of forest fires in forest patches near Mumbai, Mumbai Metropolitan Region and other parts of the state are reported frequently during the summer months. However, it has been observed that most instances of fire are man-made.