Central Kalimantan Has 77 Monitoring Posts To Strengthen Forest And Land Fire Fighting

JAKARTA - The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) has confirmed that as many as 77 forest and land fire monitoring posts (karhutla) in Central Kalimantan Province are ready to be operated as part of efforts to strengthen the supervision and command system in the field.

Head of the BNPB Disaster Information and Communication Data Center Abdul Muhari said that the posts scattered in each area prone to forest and land fires were actively used by the land task force team that had been prepared.

The ground extinguishing task force team consists of 50 TNI/Polri personnel, community volunteers caring for fire, Manggala Agni Ministry of Forestry and local governments through their respective district/city Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD).

"We continue to monitor the escalation of forest and land fires. If the situation increases, we will form a special task force such as in West Kalimantan, and also in Riau where each district and city are strengthened by 100 soldiers and 100 police officers," he said.

As direct directions from the Minister of Environment and the Head of BNPB in a coordination meeting of forest and land fires Thursday (7/8) in Central Kalimantan, Abdul said that all stakeholders in the area were asked to work together to strengthen and accelerate land extinguishing in the field if hotspots were detected even though the instruments of extinguishing the air had been alerted.

BNPB has alerted water tanks with a capacity of five tons to two water bombing helicopters and one weather modification aircraft that has been operating in the last two days.

"Communication from the air is very important to reach areas that cannot be accessed by ground teams, but the effectiveness of the ground task force remains prioritized because it is more direct and on target," said Abdul, Friday, August 8.

This preparedness is considered important because Central Kalimantan which has the distribution of peatlands is included in the six priority provinces for handling forest and land fires with Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan.

Based on a map of indications of forest and land fires from the Ministry of Forestry during January to June 2025, around 8,594 hectares of burned land with a percentage of more than 80.15 percent still targeting peatlands.

Of the six provinces of terrorism; West Kalimantan Province is the area with the most incidents with an area of 1,149 hectares burned, followed by Riau Province about 751 hectares of burned land, Central Kalimantan 146 hectares, Jambi - South Sumatra covering an area of 43 hectares, while for South Kalimantan there has been no report on the area of the burned land.