Joint Officers Work To Destroy Forest And Land Fires In Riau

PEKANBARU - Head of the Riau Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), M Edy Afrizal, said joint officers were working to extinguish fires caused by forest and land fires (karhutla) in Riau which occurred in several locations such as Bengkalis, Meranti, Pelalawan and Kampar.

"Indeed, some areas have now been found to be forest and land fires, such as in Bengkalis, Meranti, Pelalawan and Kampar, some of which have caught fire, but friends in the area can still handle it," said Edy in Pekanbaru, quoted by Antara, Selsa, March 29.

He said that since the past few days the weather in Riau has been quite hot and dry. So that the potential for forest and land fires is easier to happen, even recently many hotspots have been found in Riau

"In some areas it has started to dry up, data from the BMKG on the number of hot spots is also quite a lot," he said.

Based on data from the Riau BPBD, since the beginning of 2022 until now the total area of burned land has reached 179.91 hectares, with details in Rohul 5 hectares, Rohil 3 hectares, Dumai 5.75 hectares, Bengkalis 74.2 hectares.

Then in Meranti 7 hectares, Siak 5.98 hectares, Pekanbaru 3.63 hectares, Kampar 11 hectares, Pelalawan 22.7 hectares, Inhu 9.15 hectares, and Inhil 32.5 hectares. Meanwhile, Kuansing Regency has so far had zero land fires.