T

he Riau administration office has called for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency to distribute water over 10 of 12 regencies to help tackle forest fires.

“The central government must help before the fires expand and draw protests from neighboring Malaysia and Singapore,” R. Mambang Mit, deputy governor, said Tuesday.

Mambang said as many as 154 fire spots had scattered, with Rokan Hilir regency being the most affected with 41 fire spots.

“The fires grow each day, the preceding day there were only 139 spots,” he said.

Land clearance by local people have been blamed for the fires exacerbated by extreme heat that can reach 35.5 degree celsius.

Bengkalis Environmental Impact Controlling Agency head Tengku Ilyas said a joint team, which included a fire brigade, was unable to control the fires spreading due to its difficult-to-reach location, limited water resources and the extent of the haze.

“The fires were first spotted in a field belonging to a local and then it reached the peat land, making it even more difficult to contain, especially in heat like this,” Ilyas said.

The fires in Bukit Batu covered the regency capital of Bengkalis and Dumai with thick haze.

The local administrations have declared that the air in the regions are not good for health although it has not yet been considered to disturb the people’s daily activities.

Fishermen in Indragiri Hilir regency complain the haze has disturbed their fishing activities.

They often find it difficult to go to the sea as haze covers the air from very early in the morning until noon.

“We have limited sight. This could be dangerous as fishermen with traditional equipment will find it difficult to find their way back to shore,” Bakhtiar of Tembilahan, capital of Indragiri Hilir, said.

In Pekanbaru, smog has covered the air from morning until afternoon for the last three days.

“With this very hot weather, people are prone to acute respiratory infections or dehydration,” agency head Dahril Darmis, said.

Analyst Warih Budi Lestari of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency in Pekanbaru has announced to have detected 256 hot spots across Sumatra Island, a significant increase compared to that of the previous day’s observation, which only detected 80 spots.