2 Helicopters Added to Put Out Jatiwaringin Tangerang Landfill Fire

JAKARTA - The fire extinguishing operation at the Jatiwaringin Landfill, Mauk, Tangerang Regency, Banten, on Monday (6/7), continues to be optimized with the addition of two water bombing helicopters, making it four water bombers operating in the fire extinguishing.

"The helicopter was two before, but it continued to spray water. Now there are two more, so four helicopters," said Environment Minister (LH) Jumhur Hidayat, quoted by ANTARA, Monday, July 6.

In addition to strengthening air operations, joint officers from the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), KLH and the Ministry of Home Affairs also continue to carry out land extinguishing with the support of fire brigades and heavy equipment, which apply the injection method to extinguish fires under the waste pile.

Thus, it is targeted that all fire points can be extinguished this week. However, officers remain vigilant against the potential for fire to reappear due to the heat still stored in the waste pile.

"Manggala Agni will inject (extinguishing from below). Theoretically it should die, but if it continues to heat up, there is a potential for another fire if we are not vigilant," said Jumhur Hidayat.

Currently, the extinguishing efforts are showing significant progress. Of the total affected area of around 18 hectares, the active fire points now remain around 3.6 percent or around 1.68 hectares.

"Initially, about 70 percent of this area was burning. Then gradually, the hard work was turned off, given water from below, injected from below, from above the helicopter continued, the fire department and so on, so now it's only 3.6 percent," he said.

His party has deployed thermal drones to detect heat radiation to analyze the source of the fire and the fire points.

The next step is to deploy a mobile monitoring system that monitors the air at the fire location. One of them monitors such as SO2 (Sulfur dioxide), NO2 (Nitrogen dioxide), and also PM 1.0 and PM 2.5.

With the same characteristics as peatland fires, the government through the Ministry of Forestry has deployed 30 personnel from the Manggala Agni team from Sulawesi and West Java regions.

They already have quite good experience with high pressure equipment that is special, carrying out direct extinguishing to the point of fire below the surface of the garbage pile.

In addition to it, BNPB together with the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) prepared a Weather Modification Operation (OMC) scheme to help accelerate the fire extinguishing, so that the emergency situation of the fire disaster which reached approximately 18 hectares could be immediately controlled.

Based on ANTARA's monitoring at the location, the smoke and fire points on several garbage piles, specifically to the west and south, are still on fire. On the other hand, the blackout through the injection scheme continues to be carried out in an integrated manner through a combination.

There are three BNPB water bombing helicopters spraying the air at fire points that are difficult to reach from land.