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More land and forest fires in Riau, says BNPB
The Terra and Aqua satellites detected on Monday more hotspots in Riau, indicating the broadening of land and forest fires in the province
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he Terra and Aqua satellites detected on Monday more hotspots in Riau, indicating the broadening of land and forest fires in the province.
'The latest data, obtained at 5 a.m. Monday, showed 417 hotspots in Riau, while the total number of hotspots across Sumatra has reached 570,' Agus Wibowo, head of data and information at the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said as quoted by Antara news agency in Jakarta on Monday.
He said the satellite results were obtained from a Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) report. It was found that the number of hotspots had rapidly increased during the previous two days, from 75 on Saturday to 154 on Sunday, and then up again to 417 on Monday.
Agus said the hotspots were scattered across 11 regencies and municipalities in Riau. Rokan Hilir regency has the highest number of hotspots, with 317, followed by Bengkalis regency with 27. Other areas are Rokan Hulu with 21 hotspots, Kampar and Pelalawan regencies with nine hotspots each, Dumai City and Siak with six hotspots each, Indragiri Hilir with four, Indragiri Hulu with two and Meranti Islands with one.
Agus said the data's credibility was more than 70 percent, indicating that the real number of hotspots in Riau could be around 273, with 223 located in Rokan Hilir alone.
'The Rokan Hilir administration has been asked to increase measures to prevent land and forest burning,' he said.
The potential for land and forest fires is increasing as Riau's weather has been and is predicted to remain clear, with very low rainfall.
'The wind direction may carry smoke from the fires toward Malaysia,' Agus said.
He added that visibility in Pekanbaru was still relatively good, reaching around 8 kilometers despite widespread land and forest fires. Meanwhile, air pollution had reduced visibility to 5 km in Pelalawan and to 4 km in Indragiri Hulu.
The Riau administration has retained its "alert" status regarding the smoke in the province, as the potential for further hotspots remains high due to the long dry spell.
The administration's emergency task force is continuing to tackle the fires by deploying firefighters and three water-bomb helicopters to conduct weather-modification missions to produce artificial rain.
According to the task force's data, fires on 429 out of 499 hectares of land and forests have been extinguished. As many as 306 police and military personnel have also been deployed to help extinguish the fires. (ebf)
