On the morning of December 7, 2025, the streets of Changoo lay still. Most government employees stayed home for Sunday, while Gull Mohammad Shah, 54, a forest guard with the Jammu & Kashmir Forest Department, set out into the predawn cold.

The temperature hovered around minus five degrees as Shah made his way toward Hengipora, a dense forest in the Verinag range of Anantnag district, where a fire had been smoldering since December 5.

The elderly forest guard and a handful of colleagues had spent the previous two days trying to contain the blaze. They acted without protective clothing, fire beaters, helmets, and breathing equipment. Their only tools were bare hands, muck, and sheer determination.

In compartment 48 of the forest, as they tried to move away from advancing flames, Shah slip

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