Soputan Mountain Forest Fire Spread to 300 Acres

JAKARTA - Head of Emergency and Logistics of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) of Minahasa Tenggara Regency, North Sulawesi, Julex Wanga said that the forest fire in the protected Mount Soputan had spread to 300 hectares.

"Since the fire on Sunday (2/8), we estimate that it has reached 300 hectares or even more," said Julex as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, August 4.

He said that the trigger for the fire in the protected forest area of Mount Soputan to spread further was the wind blowing quite strongly.

"The wind is blowing quite hard, the body feels like it's going to collapse, the area is getting harder to reach," he said.

The fire point even appeared alternately, some time it went out, then it appeared again in another place.

"The hotspots until last night were around four to five, and it was wide," he said.

Joint personnel from the local government, TNI, Polri, nature lovers, communities to the community continue to make maximum efforts to extinguish the fire which continues to spread.

"We even on the second day of the fire put out the fire until 24.00 WITA," he said.

Previously, on Sunday (2/8) at around 09.45 WITA, a fire was reported in the protected area of Mount Soputan, fifteen minutes later BPBD Minahasa Tenggara and other ranks had arrived at the location and started to put out the fire.

On the second day, the area of protected land that was burned is estimated to have reached 50-100 hectares.