Gov’t Takes Measures to Tackle Land, Forest Fires
Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya delivers a press statement on Tuesday (10/03) in Jakarta.
Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya said that the Government has prepared measures to anticipate and tackle forest and land fires as the impact of El Nino.
“Since 28 September, we have been taking those measures in South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan while also monitoring condition in Riau, Jambi, and neighboring regions,” she said.
Based on a data dated October 2nd 2023, he added, there are 6,659 hot spots in which 80 percent of the figure has risks becoming fire spots.
“We have recorded that there are 267 thousand hectares of land that are on fire. I predict the fire will spread taking into account the condition in the last September and also in October,” she added.
The Minister went on to say that the Government has been taking various measures to tackle the problem among others; extinguishing the fire and applying Weather Modification Technology (TMC) in a number of provinces vulnerable to become hot spots.
Siti also confirmed that to date no transboundary haze has been detected.
“Up until now, there is no transboundary haze drifted to Malaysia. Regarding a statement that no hot spots are found in Malaysia, the satellite image shows that there are hot spots in Malaysia,” she said.
In the meantime, Head of National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) Suharyanto said that the BNPB has carried out ground and air operations to address forest and land fires. As many as 35 helicopters consisting of 13 patrol helicopters and 22 water bomber helicopters have been deployed to six priority regions of land fires management; West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Sumatra, Riau, and Jambi provinces.
In addition, the Agency also performed 244 weather modifications during the past two months in the provinces of Riau, West Kalimantan, East Nusa Tenggara, West Java, Jakarta, South Kalimantan, and South Sumatra.
Also on that occasion, Head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Dwikorita Karnawati informed that the peak of El Nino will last until the end of October, while in November transition season from dry to rainy season will occur.
According to her, El Nino is predicted to be at least of moderate strength by the end of this year, weakened in February-March, and ends in March.
“However, monsoon will blow out from Asian region to Indonesia in November. Thus, we will have rainy season in November since the impact of El Nino will be washed away by rain so it is hoped that the dry season will, God willing, end gradually. [Dry season] in some region will end before November but, in most regions, it will end in November, some other regions will be even later,” she said. (KS/TGH/FID/UN) (RAS/LW)
