217 Joint Personnel Deployed To Overcome Fires On Mount Lawu

JAKARTA Overcome forest and land fires (karhutla) which are getting bigger in the area of plots 40, Gunung Lawu, Jatirogo, Ngawi, the East Java Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) deployed a team to extinguish land routes.

The Chief Executive (Kalaksa) of the East Java BPBD Gatot Soebroto in his statement, Sunday, October 1, said the dispatch of the fire team was a quick response to the growing flames in the area of plot 40. "The fire is getting bigger in the area of plot 40, on Friday night (September 29), Saturday morning (September 30) the fire team departed," he said. According to him, dozens of East Java BPBD Teams immediately joined the Ngawi Regency BPBD Team, the Madiun Raya BPBD Team, the TNI-Polri Team, the East Java Dishut Cabdin Team, the Forestry Team, KPH Lawu, LMDH, and a number of volunteers who were also struggling to carry out the handling of the blaze. "Until Saturday afternoon (September 30), about 30 hectares of forest land area in the North KPH Lawu region which is predicted to be affected by forest and land fires this time. And about 217 joint personnel who participated in the fire fighting activities," he said. Therefore, he said, to support land lane outage activities, his party also provided logistic support in the form of forest and land fires bag BNPB as much as 60 packages, 30 boxes of ready-to-eat rendang food, an additional 30 boxes of biscuits nutrition, an additional five boxes of cocktail nutrition, and an additional five boxes of green beans. Gatot explained that the efforts to extinguish the Gunung Lawu forest fires this time were constrained by steep terrain, strong winds and limited infrastructure. "As an effort to inhibit the speed of fire, the joint team of land lanes has made an alignment to block the fire rate so as not to spread. Because, the fire of forest and land fires has now led to Section 49, which is included in the Magetan region," he said.

In addition, he continued, as an anticipatory and acceleration measure, he has also coordinated with the BNPB Team for the need to handle forest and land fires by air, aka water bombing. "Currently, we are continuing to monitor developments at the location. Do you need to handle it by water bombing or simply by land," said Gatot. Not only that, he said, his party also assigned a monitoring team located in Jogorogo Village and Ngrayudan Village, Jogorogo's concern to monitor the development of the blaze at the location.