Riau Fire Alert, Government Prepares OMC to Water Bombing Helicopters 

PEKANBARU - The central government together with the regional government in the Riau Province held a Forest and Land Fire Preparedness (Karhutla) Apel at the Roesmin Nurjadin Air Base, Pekanbaru.

This apple was held ahead of the dry season which is expected to begin at the end of March 2026. This readiness apple was attended by around 1,000 personnel consisting of local government elements, the business world, and the community.

A number of forest fire control equipment was also displayed, ranging from patrol helicopters and water bombing, Cessna aircraft for weather modification operations, to fire vehicles and motorcycles used by the ground task force.

Apel was led by Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs (Menko Polkam) General TNI (Purn) Djamari Chaniago.

In his instructions, Djamari said that this apple aims to ensure the government's readiness to face the potential for forest and land fires during the dry season.

"This effort is one of them as this readiness minimizes the chance of Karhutla. Mitigation as early as possible by modifying the weather to fill ponds, ditches and canals to maintain water levels. Then prepare water bombing helicopters and patrol helicopters," said Djamari, Thursday, March 5.

According to him, prevention needs to be carried out early because forest and land fires not only have an impact on the burned area. The smoke generated can spread to other areas, even across the country.

He emphasized that handling forest fires requires the joint work of various parties, ranging from the central government, local governments, to the community.

"This cannot be done by the central government alone, not by the local government alone, but must be done by all parties. This is our responsibility to the nation," he said.

On the same occasion, BNPB Head Suharyanto said that in recent years there have been no large forest and land fires like those that occurred in 2019.

"Seven years ago there was no major fire like in 2019. In 2023 there is El Nino, but Indonesia can overcome it," he said.

BNPB is preparing a number of strategies for handling the 2026 forest and peatland fires, one of which is through weather modification operations (OMC) as long as there is still the potential for rain clouds in the Riau region.

"We have carried out OMC. When there is still growth of rain clouds, it is most effective and efficient if there is a fire brought by rain, the fire can go out," he said.

In addition to weather modification operations, BNPB also prepared a ground task force involving joint personnel from the TNI, Polri, BPBD, Manggala Agni, and the community.

"If the rainfall is getting less because it's the dry season, it's hard to bring rain through OMC, there is a Land Task Force that is already working, a joint Land Task Force has been formed between the TNI, Polri, BPBD, Manggala Agni and the community. They already have equipment," said Suharyanto.

If the fire gets bigger and cannot be overcome by ground operations, the government will deploy helicopters for aerial firefighting operations.

"The last effort if the OMC and the Task Force cannot be carried out because the fire continues to be large, we support it with helicopter water bombing operations," he continued.

BNPB noted that since February 16 to March 4, 2026, weather modification operations have been carried out with 27 sorties with a total of 27 tons of seeding material distributed in the Riau region.

This year, the government has also designated six priority provinces for handling karhutla in accordance with Presidential Instruction Number 1 of 2020, namely Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan.

"Until the beginning of March, only Riau Province has asked for assistance from the central government, so today the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs is present in Riau to lead directly," concluded Suharyanto.