T

he Indonesian Embassy in Singapore says that the Singaporean government has offered the Indonesian government assistance to extinguish the peatlandfires in Riau province.

The peatland fires in Pelintung and Sepahat, which started last week, have engulfed around 850 hectares, 460 hectares of which have been successfully put out.

'€œSingapore'€™s minister for the environment and water resources has offered us a hand to put out the fires inRiau,'€ the spokesman of the Indonesian Embassy, Simon, said as quoted by Antara news agency on Thursday.

The Pollutant Standards Index, Singapore's main measurement for air pollution surged to a record reading of 371, due to the thick haze from Indonesia. The rising index breaches the "hazardous" classification, possiblyaggravating respiratory ailments. Meanwhile, nearby Malaysia closed 200 schools and banned open burning in some areas due to the haze.

Simon said the Singaporean government had yet to elaborate on what kinds of aid it would give to put out the peatland fires.

The Indonesian government via its Embassy in Singapore has welcomed the intention of the Singaporean government.

He added that the CEO of the Singaporean National Environmental Agency would conduct an emergency meeting to talk about the haze with representatives of the Environment Ministry and the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta.

'€œ They will probably discuss the details of the proposed aid in the meetings,'€ he said.

Based on the monitoring of the NOAA-15 satellite, the number of fire hot spots increased to 243 across Sumatra, including Riau, Jambi and North Sumatra Provinces. Meanwhile, the data of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency(BMG) showed 1,403 hot spots in Sumatra.