It took 6 Hours for BPBD to put out a fire of 3 hectares of a resident's garden in Kotim

JAKARTA - The Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) carried out fire control on land in a garden belonging to residents in Bangkuang Makmur Village, Mentawa Baru District, Ketapang, East Kotawaringin Regency (Kotim), Central Kalimantan (Kalteng).

"The location that burned was a plantation owned by Mr. Muhajirin with an area of approximately three hectares. The owner of the land also did not know that a fire had occurred on his land," said the Head of the Kotim BPBD, Multazam, in Sampit, Friday, quoted by Antara.

The land fire in Bangkuang Makmur Village has been going on since Wednesday afternoon, March 25. Officers tried to put out the fire until the evening, then continued on Thursday morning.

BPBD Kotim sent a team consisting of 10 personnel assisted by 7 Manggala Agni personnel. To reach the location of the land fire, the team entered through the Eka Bahurui Village road, Mentawa Baru District, Ketapang, along a 4.2 km road from the Poros Sampit - Samuda Road.

The land that burned was a bush on peat land. The extinguishing and cooling lasted for more than 6 hours, starting at 10.00 WIB until 16.11 WIB.

"The team cooled the burned land, with a burned area of 0.95 hectares. The land fire that occurred left smoke so the team cooled the location," said Multazam.

A day earlier, land fires also occurred on Jalan Ir Soekarno, Baamang Tengah Village, Baamang District.

Multazam appealed to the public not to burn land. Currently, the intensity of rain has decreased so that forest and land fires are very prone to occur.

The appeal not to burn land is an early prevention effort that continues to be strengthened by the local government. Hopefully, the community will be concerned so that forest and land fires and smog can be prevented.

"The land in East Kotawaringin is partly peat. During the dry season, peat is very easy to dry out and burn, while the blackout is quite difficult because the fire usually burns into the ground even though it has been extinguished on the surface. That's why we optimize this prevention," said Multazam.