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Weaker El Niño brings major forest, land fires
Indonesia is currently on the brink of another haze crisis as the archipelago is seeing an increase in the number of forest and land fires
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span>Indonesia 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 said 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.
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 occurred since June.
El Niño is a climate pattern linked to warming waters in the central and eastern areas of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Such weather phenomena are known to trigger an extension of the dry season in Indonesia, which can increase the risk of wildfires.
“Despite the weak phenomenon, it has triggered many days without rain. Some regions have not seen rain for more than 100 days,” Ruandha said.
The BMKG predicted that the rainy season would not start until October. The prolonged dry season, it added, was the result of “a negative anomaly of the country’s sea surface temperature”. BMKG meteorology deputy head Mulyono R. Prabowo said the dry season had caused plants to be more flammable than before.
Ruandha added that similar phenomena had also contributed to an increase in forest and land fires in 2018. “The average daily temperature in 2018 was hotter than in 2017 thanks to the weak El Niño.”
While echoing the officials about the prolonged dry season, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) scientist and a professor at Bogor Agricultural University Herry Purnomo said the government’s complacency in mitigating wildfires might have contributed in the recent increase in fires.
“The government has been making several efforts to prevent wildfires. However, they have not yet been able to do enough to prevent another crisis due to a lack of resources to execute it,” Herry told The Jakarta Post.
Ruandha dismissed such concerns, saying the government had intensified measures to mitigate forest and land fire in recent years, especially in 2018 when the country held the Asian Games.
“In the last two months, the ministry had intensified joint patrols with police and military personnel in areas deemed prone to wildfires. We also ramped up measures to extinguish fires at the hot spots,” he said.
Authorities said the haze had affected several major cities in Indonesia, especially those located in regions deemed prone to wildfires. Residents in Pekanbaru, Riau, were forced to perform Idul Adha prayers on Sunday as thick haze blanketed them.
The local administration of Pontianak, West Kalimantan mulled over a plan to temporarily dismiss school activities if the haze produced from forest and land fires in the province became thicker and uncontrollable.
Haze is reported to have affected neighboring countries. Malaysian-based newspaper The Star reported on Aug. 2 that smog claimed to have come from forest fires in Riau had affected several cities in Malaysia, including Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya. Prior to his visit to the country, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said he was embarrassed because the issue of haze had made headlines.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesperson Agus Wibowo said the haze had reached the neighboring Malaysian state of Sarawak. He added that the 2015 haze crisis, which badly affected Malaysia and Singapore, was likely to recur should Indonesia fail to address the forest fires.
The BNPB has deployed 9,000 joint personnel from the military and the police to six regions prone to wildfires, such as Riau, Jambi, West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan. They are assigned to prevent any slash and burn practices, deemed to be the reason behind the rampant wildfires.
The agency has also deployed 34 water-bombing helicopters to help extinguish the fires from above while waiting for the rainy season to come.
The Environment and Forestry Ministry has also deployed more than 14,000 personnel from its Manggala Agni fire brigade as well as volunteers to monitor and extinguish fires. It has also readied several early warning systems, such as security cameras and satellite monitoring, to detect more hot spots before the fires spread to a wider area.
