Beware, 7,735 Karhutla Hotspots Detected in South Kalimantan

Photo Illustration: Antara

KALSEL - The South Kalimantan Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) and air patrols have detected 7,735 hotspots related to forest and land fires (karhutla).

Based on data from the South Kalimantan Disaster Management Operations Control Center (Pusdalops-PB) BPBD until Saturday (August 19) at 23.55 p.m. Central Indonesian Time (WITA), the number of hotspots has increased compared to last week's around 4,543 points.

"The most hotspots were in Hulu Sungai Selatan Regency, around 1,380 points. The area of ​​forest and land fires being handled there has reached 77 hectares," said Head of South Kalimantan Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) Raden Suria Fadliansyah when confirmed in Banjarmasin, Sunday.

Based on data collected through applications and air patrols, sequentially there are three more districts that have detected the most hotspots, namely Tanah Laut (1,363 points), Banjar (1,292 points), and Balangan (1,150 points).

"Banjarmasin city area is not worrying, because at least there are only six heat sources," he said.

He revealed that there were three areas that dominated the area of ​​forest and land fire handling, the first being in the City of Banjarbaru. Karhutla events in the city occur almost every day with records of handling reaching 708 hectares, even though hotspots in the city are not too vulnerable.

Then the second area in Tanah Laut Regency with karhutla reached 424 hectares. Then the third is in Banjar Regency with an area of ​​land and forest fire handling of around 287 hectares.

Overall in 13 regencies and cities, the Task Force handled 1,762 hectares of forest and land fires with details of 650 incidents including 29 forest fires and 621 land fires.

The data is all karhutla events handled by the joint task force based on the records of the South Kalimantan BPBD.

Quoted from Antara, at several karhutla locations, land task force officials acknowledged that several locations were difficult to reach due to inaccessibility, so there were still large areas of karhutla that were not recorded by the Kalsel Disaster Management Operations Control Center (Pusdalops-PB BPBD).