The fires, among the worst recorded in Uttarakhand's history, burned approximately 4,538 hectares (11,210 acres) of forest land, resulted in nine fatalities, and significantly impacted local tourism and wildlife in the Jim Corbett National Park and Rajaji Tiger reserve.

Instead of harming them, these fires help in their growth by reducing coverage of broad-leaf trees, which leads to an increase in the land covered by chir pine and oak.

[7] A major cause of the fires was attributed to the record high temperatures and severe lack of rainfall due to a dry winter.

[9] The Uttarakhand forest fires also came as India suffered one of its worst droughts in years with the government noting that over 330 million people were affected by water shortages.

[10] The forest fires began on February 2, 2016, and went initially unnoticed for several weeks,[11] while Parliament was in a state of outrage over the presidential rule which had been imposed on Uttarakhand.

[citation needed] The conservationist Ela Smetacek started a public awareness campaign to highlight the damage from the fires calling on the Indian government to address the issue.

Her Facebook post was shared over 58,000 times as it showed the entire hillsides ablaze with walls of flames engulfing even the tallest trees.

[14] The post demanding the fires be recognized as a national emergency, and the need of immediate deployment of NDRF teams, led to the government taking action, deploying the National Disaster Response Force and making use of Indian Air Force Mi-17 helicopters fitted with Helicopter bucket (bambi buckets) to douse the fires with water.

[16] Various other locations in these Himalayan states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh are tourist attractions in summer, and they now face heavy air pollution.

[19] Scientists of the Govind Ballabh Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development formed a team to survey the area and study the effects of the fires on the melting of glaciers.

[25] The Indian central government later announced a series of funds amounting to over ₹50,000 crores (US$7.5B) to go towards afforestation across the state of Uttarakhand and the country.

[27] Various tourism-related associations suggested that the exaggerated representation of the fires by the media could reduce tourism, a major part of the state economy.