Massive fire destroy wheat crops in several acres of land in Samba

A massive fire completely destroyed standing and cut-out wheat crop spread over 100 acres of farmland in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district on Wednesday. The fire started due to an electric short circuit in a power supply line over the farmland in Samba, officials said.

Within minutes, the fire spread over 2 to 3 kilometres of area and engulfed the vast chunks of land as local people and fire tenders rushed to douse it, they said, adding the efforts to control the fire are still on. The people, however, alleged that there were just two fire tenders with the authorities and even they were late in reaching the spot.

They said they have demanded the government to call army fire tenders to extinguish the fire. The people claimed that crops in over 100 acres of land have destroyed, leaving over 20 farmers in extreme distress.