The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Forestry Ministry is deploying 1,560 personnel to fight forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan, answering calls from other ASEAN nations for Indonesia to improve its attempts to tackle the problem.
Seven helicopters will also be sent to disaster areas to water-bomb the land until the rainy season begins.
""Most of the haze sources are located on peatland. Induced rain or spraying only on the surface will not eradicate the haze completely, so we are sending our ground and air personnel to combat the disaster,"" said Forestry Ministry spokesman Mashyud on Tuesday.
He said the ministry had sent land and air haze fighters to Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, South Sumatra, Riau and Jambi.
""We will cooperate with local police to use seven water bombing helicopters in Sumatra and Kalimantan. In South Sumatra, pulp and paper company PT Sinar Mas is lending us its chopper,"" Mashyud said.
The ground troops, dubbed Manggala Akni, are equipped with four-wheel-drive vehicles and special portable tools that can inject water beneath the peat's surface.
Both the air and ground fighters will stop the operation when the haze is completely gone or the rainy season comes.
It is expected that the volume and intensity of the rain when it hits the area will reduce the number of spot fires in country, he said.
The 1,560 personnel being sent, all of which are civil servants from the ministry, include 200 trained to evacuate people during a blaze.
""Around 4,5000 people from the local community, from 150 villages in the hardest-hit areas, will also help our ground personnel by educating their community in haze prevention and eradication,"" Mashyud said.
He said that next year's dry season would be longer than this year's, according to the forecast, so prevention steps were necessary.
He added that most of the haze was located outside of the forest areas and that ""Only 30 percent of the hot spots are located inside the forests. However, many people have the perception that the Forestry Ministry is solely responsible for the catastrophe,"" said Mashyud.
He said coordination among the related government agencies needed to be increased.
""The environment ministry, the Home Ministry, the Agricultural Ministry and even then the Army should collaborate,"" he said.
The meeting of ASEAN leaders last week in Pekanbaru, Riau, acknowledged that it would be difficult for Indonesia alone to extinguish the fires.
The meeting recognized several reasons for the haze, including land clearing, hotter and drier weather conditions than in previous years and the remoteness and size of the peatland fire area. (03)
