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Indonesia’s raging forest fires, explained
More hot spots were detected because of the El Niño phenomenon, which has brought drought to the country
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This picture taken on Aug. 10 shows Indonesian firefighters battling a fire at a peatland forest in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra, due to the dry season which had worsened in recent weeks. (AFP/Abdul Qodir)
I
ndonesia is currently on the brink of another haze crisis as the archipelago is seeing an increase in the number of forest and land fires.
According to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the number of hot spots increased to 2,002 on Aug. 9 from 1,586 on Aug. 7 and 1,025 on Aug. 3. The hot spots were largely detected in the provinces of Riau, West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan.
Apart from the hot spots, wildfires also burned more land area. The Environment and Forestry Ministry recorded wildfires had burned 42,740 hectares of land across the country between January and May -- nearly twice the area burned in the corresponding period last year, which was 23,745 ha.
This occurred roughly three years after Indonesia started ramping up efforts to mitigate the impacts of forest and land fires across the country, which seems to be bearing fruit as the country has yet to suffer large-scale wildfires since then. It raises concerns about a possible repeat of the 2015 haze crisis that badly affected the country, as well as neighboring countries Malaysia and Singapore.
Why are there more wildfires in Indonesia this year?
The Environment and Forestry Ministry’s climate change director general, Ruandha Agung Sugardiman, said more hot spots had been detected recently across the country because of a weak El Niño that was estimated to have occured since June.
