BNPB: Rain Improves Air Quality In West Kalimantan

Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) Lt. Gen. Suharyanto stated that the rain for the last few days that fell in West Kalimantan Province (Kalbar) helped improve air quality in the area.

"Alhamdulillah, it's been raining for three days," he said at the Coordination Meeting (Rakor) for the Emergency Management of the Karhutla Disaster in West Kalimantan Province, quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, September 20.

However, he reminded the West Kalimantan Provincial Government and other related elements to be aware of weather conditions in the next few days.

"BMKG monitoring, in the next few days will be hot," he said.

Suharyanto explained that if there is no potential for rain, the weather modification technology (TMC) can be done if it is needed to handle forest and land fires.

In his presentation, the Head of BNPB reminded the ranks of the West Kalimantan Provincial Government to maintain good condition at this time.

Suharyanto hopes that there will be no smoke disasters due to forest and land fires as in 2015 and 2019.

"Don't let us send smoke to neighboring countries," he said.

He gave an example of Indonesia being one of the best countries in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. He hopes that this will not be tarnished by handling forest and land fires which have a wide impact, especially forest and land fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan, to neighboring countries in Southeast Asia.

Suharyanto said that previously the forest and land fires in Indonesia were reduced due to the influence of the season which tends to be wet and the COVID-19 pandemic.

But this time, the El Nino phenomenon can have a dryer season impact and trigger forest and land fires.

Although there were no hotspots recorded in the West Kalimantan region, he asked the Karhutla Handling Task Force (Satgas) from various elements such as the regional government, the TNI and Polri to ensure that the fire that had been extinguished was completely extinguished.

If the fire is already big like in South Sumatra, it is very difficult to extinguish it. Even though there are three waterbombing helicopters (water bombers), this is like being doused with water but not significant. The only way when the fire is big, we bring rain," he said.

Suharyanto underlined President Joko Widodo's direction in handling forest and land fires, namely not to let the fire be big and too late in extinguishing it.

The fire that burned the land of about 10 hectares, he gave an example, would be difficult and futile if a water bombing was carried out to extinguish it.

"This must be done by bringing rain," he said.

In addition, he said, law enforcement efforts were actually carried out in handling forest and land fires in the region.