Forest Fires In Ciremai, 120 Firefighters Were Lowered

Illustration of forest fires (photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - A total of 120 officers from a number of agencies were dispatched to extinguish the blaze that burned the Mount Ciremai National Park (TNGC) forest area in Kuningan Regency, West Java.

Head of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) of Kuningan Regency, Indra Bayu, said that all joint personnel involved were deployed to speed up the process of extinguishing the blaze.

"The number of outage personnel is 120 people consisting of the TNGC, TNI, Polri, firefighters, our team, local village officials and the community," said Indra quoting Antara.

He said the point of forest fires in Mount Ciremai was in the area of Padadabeunghar Village, Pasawahan District, which was known to have been on fire since Friday (25/8) afternoon.

The beginning of the forest fire, he said, was seen in the Batu Kuda Block, but has now spread to a number of forest areas on the mountain.

"At 10.30 WIB, last Friday, people saw a puff of smoke in the Batu Kuda Block area. Then the fire spread towards Bukit Seribu Bintang and towards the Karang Wall Block," he said.

He conveyed that the extinguishing process was hampered by the difficulty of reaching a hotspot area with a lot of rocks and dangerous for officers.

This, he said, was exacerbated by the strong wind conditions, so that the flames could spread to other areas.

"The joint team was deployed to several points to carry out extinguishing efforts using equipment such as jet shooters, hoses or water pipes and other existing equipment," he said.

So that the hotspots do not increase much, continued Indra, joint officers made a burning barrier from the direction of Bukit Seribu Bintang to Karang Dindung, which was considered effective in breaking the fire spread to other forest areas.

"Padaman di beberapa titik lokasi dan pembuatan sekat bakar untuk mencegah api meluas," katanya.