Afflicted communities will be invited to play a more active role in fighting forest fires in the northern region, according to the government.
Local officials and firefighters will send lists of the tambons worst hit by wildfires to governors of nine provinces in the northern region, said Dunrit Ruethaiwarunrat of the Royal Forest Department's Forest Fire Control Division.
Provincial governors will then map out actions plans and resource deployment to include these communities in forest fire protection plans, the official told a press conference on Tuesday.
Tambons at particular risk of fires will also be put on a watch list, he said.
"Although the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has already established fire fighting cooperation initiatives with 3,100 villages in the North, more steps must be taken to combat wildfires," Mr Dunrit said.
The action plan is the latest government strategy to cope with ferocious fires in the North that have wiped out 2.4 million rai of forest land so far this year.
In addition to cooperating with small communities, the ministry, which oversees public forests across the country, plans to make use of advanced technology, including satellite links to locate and monitor the outbreaks, said Mr Dunrit.
There have been 8,503 wildfires in the North this year already, compared with 4,256 during the whole of last year.
Some 3,154 fires occurred in ecologically valuable forest areas such as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries under the jurisdiction of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation's responsibility and 3,040 broke out in areas under the Department of Royal Forest.
Thousands of staff have been deployed to control the fires which began in February.
The Office of Aviation for Natural Resources Conservation has undertaken 1,468 flights to put out the blazes, releasing 730,000 litres of water during those missions.
The total fuel cost was put at 4.18 million baht so far this year.
Spokesman of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Sompoj Maneerat said that El Nino, a drought-induced climate pattern, is the main culprit.