One Hectare Of Dry Land In Belitung Burns, Allegedly Due To Cigarette Benefits

The fire fighting team (Damkar) of the Belitung Regency BPBD, Bangka Belitung Islands Province, managed to extinguish a fire of one hectare of dry land on Jalan Pondok Pesantren At-Taqwa, Air Ketekok Village, Tanjung Pandan, Sunday, August 11.

"Alhamdulillah, the dry land fire with an area of approximately one hectare was successfully extinguished by the team," said Team II Commander of the Belitung Riko Pribadi BPBD Fire Department in Tanjung Pandan, Antara, Sunday, August 11.

According to him, the dry land fire was reported by a resident to the BPBD Fire Station.

"We received a report from one of the residents to the Belitung BPBD Damkar Post and stated that there had been a dry land fire at the location," he said.

After receiving the report, Riko continued, the Belitung BPBD Damkar unit picket officers went straight to the location and sprayed or extinguished them.

"The time spent to extinguish the fire is approximately 20 minutes," he said.

He explained that the cause of the fire could not be known for sure, it is strongly suspected that because of the cigarette butts that were thrown into the dry land, the weather was hot and windy, the fire was spreading rapidly.

He appealed to the public to jointly protect their environment from the threat of land fires in the midst of the current dry weather conditions.

"We urge the public not to burn garbage carelessly without supervision, including throwing cigarette butts carelessly, because danger can cause a fire," he said.