Main image via France 24 , Malaysiakini
Forest fires can easily escalate to something out of control and Indonesia has recently declared a state of emergency to brace for its annual fire season.
The Indonesian government declared a state of emergency in Central Kalimantan, one of the country’s largest province, after over 700 fires were identified.
Central Kalimantan’s state of emergency is still in the early stages and calls for more patrols and early extinguishing activity and will run till 28 September.
“Efforts to mitigate forest fires are underway because almost every region in Central Kalimantan entered the dry season in July,” said an official from Central Kalimantan’s disaster mitigation agency, Alpius Patanan.
Two other provinces, Riau and South Sumatra, have also declared a state of emergency after the regions entered the peak of dry season with many forest and land fires ravaged in several areas.
The COVID-19 outbreak previously caused the environment ministry's budget cut and scaled back protection that could result in more dangerous forest fires, forcing communities to fight them on their own too.
“Fire hot spots could potentially be bigger and spread to remote peat land areas, especially in the burned areas from 2019 that are not yet restored,” said the head of the Greenpeace forests campaign, Kiki Taufik.
“And the haze could be potentially thicker or similar to last year.”
Reports noted that firefighters are working towards cooling down the peatland to prevent fires from breaking out of the surface after a fire broke out in Dumai, Riau.
“Putting out the fire on peatland is difficult because the fire source is located 2 meters under the ground,” said the head of Dumai’s Forest Fire Control Brigade, Ismail Hasibuan.
“Fortunately, we had enough water. Two helicopters from the BNPB also helped put out the fire through water bombing.”
Let’s hope the forest fires won’t worsen and turn into an uncontrollable situation!
Info via Reuters , The Jakarta Post
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