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Fire team stays alert over hot spots in West Kalimantan
Stay alert: The commander of the land and forest fire control task force in West Kalimantan says it will stay on guard against fires in the province
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Stay alert: The commander of the land and forest fire control task force in West Kalimantan says it will stay on guard against fires in the province. (Illustration tempo.co) (Illustration tempo.co)
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span class="inline inline-center">Stay alert: The commander of the land and forest fire control task force in West Kalimantan says it will stay on guard against fires in the province. (Illustration tempo.co)
The commander of the land and forest fire control task force in West Kalimantan, Christiandy Sanjaya, said it would continue to stay on guard to prevent hot spots from springing up again in the province.
'From the results of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency's [BMKG] monitoring via NOAA and Modis satellites, no hot spot has been found in West Kalimantan today. However, we will continue to carry out monitoring so that hot spots will not appear again,' said Christiandy, who is also the deputy West Kalimantan governor, as quoted by Antara in Pontianak on Sunday.
The deputy governor said he was grateful that the rain fell evenly in areas across West Kalimantan, reducing the smoky haze that had caused the province's residents to suffer from respiratory illnesses.
Christiandy admitted that the West Kalimantan administration was overwhelmed with problems caused by the haze disaster in the province. However, he said he was grateful that the problems had been resolved gradually, thanks to the hard work of the task force.
'People from all religious backgrounds had held mass prayers asking for rain and now rain has fallen in West Kalimantan,' he said.
Although the BMKG had reported no more hot spots, Christiandy said the task force has not yet been disbanded and would continue to monitor developments in the field.
He said it was difficult for the task force to tackle fires in West Kalimantan even if it used water bombing, as most of the fires occurred in peat lands and dry peat burned easily.
'After spraying water on the burned land, we'll see that the fire seems to be fully extinguished. In fact, the embers from the land fires will be absorbed into the soil and they will ignite again once the surface soil dries,' he said.
That was why, Christiandy said, no West Kalimantan residents should carry out any land burning. 'They themselves will suffer losses from the fires. Not only their health will be affected, their economic activities will be disrupted as well. We have to learn from what we have experienced,' said Christiandy. (ebf)
