BNPB Modified Weather Pressing Forest And Land Fires In South Sumatra Via Palembang Air Base For 11 Days

SOUTH SUMATRA - Sri Mulyo Herlambang Air Base (SMH) Palembang facilitates the operation of weather modification technology (TMC) in South Sumatra (Sumsel) in order to face the threat of El Nino drought.

The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) is known to have mitigated forest and land fires (karhutla) by carrying out TMC operations for wetting peatlands in South Sumatra to face the 2023 dry season which is predicted to be drier due to the impact of El Nino.

"The TMC operation starts today on August 8-18, 2023 for 11 days, and flights are carried out from the post placed at the Palembang Vocational High School. During the implementation of the TMC operation, it always prioritizes safety, because the success of this task can be carried out properly if it is carried out safely and safely," said the Commander of the Palembang Vocational High School, Colonel Pnb Sigit Gatot Prasetyo in Palembang, Tuesday, August 8, confiscated by Antara.

The BMKG informed that the rainy season in 2023 will be dominated by conditions below Normal, meaning that in the next few months the rainfall will be below the climatological average rainfall.

It is predicted that from August to October 2023 rainfall will be dominated by a low rainfall intensity of 50-100 mm/bln and some 20-50 mm/bln, especially in the southern part of Sumatra, Java Island to Timor.

"From observations of days without rain (HTH) in 13 automatic rainfall absorbers (AWS) in the Sinar Mas area of South Sumatra, there are already 8 AWS rainfills that have not rained for 10 days from Basarian II and III in July 2023," he said.

He explained that based on the letter of the Head of BNPB No. B-397/KA BNPB/PD.01.04/08/2023 dated August 4, 2023, he trusted PT. Smart Cakrawala Aviation as the operator of TMC in the South Sumatra region.

To carry out TMC forest and land fires activities, PT Smart Cakrawala Aviation has prepared aircraft devices, powder Semai materials, and implementing human resources that have meteorological scientific competencies, hydrology, geography, cloud physics, and other scientific competencies.

The aircraft was used for the implementation of the TMC, the Cessna Grand Caravan 208/208B and Pilatus PC-6 Porter and was declared feasible by the Directorate of Airworthiness and Aircraft Operations (DKUPPU) of the Ministry of Transportation.

Currently, the air fleet PT Smart Cakrawala Aviation is ready to implement a TMC based on flares with a mock flare rack with a capacity of 24 flares, of which one flare is equivalent to 500-700 kg of powder material, and a powder-based TMC with a carrying capacity of 800'1000 kilograms of Semai material.

"PT Smart Cakrawala Aviation can ensure the availability of enough aircraft to maintain the implementation of TMC operations in various places in parallel and continuously," he said.

In addition, at the TMC implementation this time, supervision was carried out by the Main Expert Engineers of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) in the water resource development technology research group through weather modifications.