2 Hectares Of Vacant Land In Kampung Lengkuas Bintan Caught Fire

BINTAN - About two hectares of vacant land in Lengkuas Village, East Bintan District, Bintan Regency, Riau Islands (Kepri), burned down. It is suspected that the residents deliberately cleared the land by burning it.

"The fire brigade team received information from the public at around 18.00 WIB," said Head of the UPT Fire Department (Damkar) of Bintan Timur District, Nurwendi, quoted by Antara, Thursday, January 13.

After that, he said, the firefighting team assisted by the forest and land fire task force (karhutla) from the East Bintan Police immediately came to the scene (TKP) to extinguish the fire.

His party deployed a fire engine with a capacity of three tons of water. As of Thursday night, the blackout process is still ongoing.

"The source of the fire is not yet known, but it is possible that it was deliberately burned to clear land, considering that it is summer," he said.

He appealed to residents not to burn land or forests in the summer because there is a high risk of triggering forest and land fires.

In addition, there will be strict sanctions given to residents who are caught intentionally burning land.

"According to Article 108 of the Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 32 of 2009 concerning the Environment. The arsonist has the potential to be fined Rp. 10 billion and jailed for 10 years," said Nurwendi.