Minister Of Environment Claims Handling Forest And Land Fires In Riau Fast

Minister of Environment and Forestry Hanif Faisol Nurrofiq (wearing a white shirt) when he went directly to deal with forest and land fires in Rokan Hilir Regency, Riau, on Wednesday (23/7/2025). ANTARA/HO-Ministry LH.

JAKARTA - The Minister of Environment (LH)/Head of the Environmental Control Agency Hanif Faisol Nurrofiq ensured that the handling of forest and land fires (karhutla) in Rokan Hilir Regency, Riau, was carried out quickly and thoroughly.

"We appreciate the efforts that have been made by the local government and all its staff. However, there needs to be an increase in the intensity of extinguishing the fire so that the forest and land fires in Rokan Hilir are resolved as soon as possible," said Hanif as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, July 23.

When reviewing directly and monitoring from the air, Hanif found a fire engulfing a very dry peatland with minimal access to water sources.

Air monitoring includes vulnerable areas such as Bangko Pusako, Kubu, Babussalam Kubu, Simpang Kanan, and Pasir Limau Kapas sub-districts.

Hotspots were also found in production forests and limited production forests that are prone to massive fire spread.

Responding to this situation, KLH/BPLH continues to strengthen coordination with various parties, including the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), the TNI, Polri, and local governments, to increase speed and effectiveness of responses.

"We will continue to coordinate with all parties to end the emergence of smoke hazards in Rokan Hilir. Sufficiently, the forest and land fires that are currently happening, we will immediately contact the Head of BNPB to immediately send outage assistance in the upper region and optimize the blackout by the joint TNI, Polri and local government teams," said Hanif.

The spike in hot spots in Rokan Hilir reached 354 points with nine active hotspots as of July 20, 2025, making this area the area with the highest forest and land fires incident in Riau Province.

As part of the emergency action, five BNPB-owned water bombing helicopters have been deployed.

As of mid-July 2025, it was recorded that 554 units of water bombing had been carried out with a total volume of 2.37 million liters.

In addition, the Weather Modification Operation (OMC) has been running again since July 21, 2025, with the target of the Rokan Hilir area and its surroundings using 1,000 kilograms of semai of NaCl to encourage rain.

Hanif also emphasized that the handling of forest and land fires should not only be reactive, but must be a priority in environmental governance that is fair, sustainable, and responsive to the climate crisis.