Allegedly Deliberately Burned, 5 Hectares Of Forest And Land In Balikpapan Burned Out

Illustration of forest fires (ANTARA)

BALIKPAPAN - Allegedly due to deliberately being burned to open land, five hectares of forest and land in the city of Balikpapan, Sunday, October 15 evening, burned down. The difficulty of access to the location of the fire forced dozens of officers to extinguish the flames manually. Forest and land fires (karhutla) this time hit forest and bush areas on Jalan Pengendung Pulau Balang, Kilometer 13, Kariangau Village, West Balikpapan District. The fire was first seen at around 20.00 WITA and quickly grew. Blowing strong winds as well as the abundance of branches and branches of dry trees that were easily burned made the flames even more violent. The location of the fire far from the main streets also made it difficult for officers to reach the hotspots. Badminton Kariangau, Sertu Ahmad Subbarja said that this forest fire was strongly suspected to be caused by the community deliberately burning to open the land. "This seems to be deliberately burned," said Ahmad, Sunday, October 15 night. According to him, the alleged intentionality in this fire accident was reinforced by the findings of evidence in the form of used tires and piles of wood that were burned down.

"Because we found a car tire that was still burning, there was still a fire, that's where we believed it was intentional," he added.

The police are currently conducting a search with officers from the Balikpapan Satpol PP. Temporary data shows that the flames have scorched about 5 hectares of forest and land in the area.