Belitung Damkar Puts Out Fire That Burns 3 Hectares Of Forest

Belitung Firefighters are trying to extinguish the fire that burned the forest (ANTARA/Kasmono-Apriliansyah)

BELITUNG - Firefighters from the Belitung Regency Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), Bangka Belitung Islands, managed to extinguish a fire that burned a forest area of three hectares in the area.

"Alhamdulillah, we managed to extinguish three hectares of forest and land fires on Jalan Bicong," said BPBD Firefighters Team Commander Belitung Riko Pribadi in Tanjung Pandan as reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, August 30.

According to him, the incident occurred on Jalan Bicong, Air Merbau Village, Tanjung Pandan on Tuesday (29/8) at around 14.30 WIB.

He said to extinguish the fire, his party deployed two fire fighting fleets along with a number of personnel from the Belitung BPBD Rapid Response Team (TRC).

"We managed to extinguish the fire for approximately 190 minutes, starting at 14.30 WIB until 17.00 WIB," he said.

He explained that the Belitung BPBD Damkar team received a report from a resident regarding the forest and land fires at the location.

According to him, the burned land consisted of grass and weeds, dry so that the fire spread quickly.

"We did not find any problems in the field, but because the land is dry weeds, the fire spreads quickly. We are trying to extinguish the fire so it doesn't spread," he said.

He said the source of the fire in the fire incident was not yet known. However, his party suspected that the fire was triggered by burning garbage or dried grass.

"The source of the fire is not yet known, but it is suspected that it was caused by burning garbage and dry grass," he said.

Riko appealed to the public not to burn garbage or throw cigarette butts carelessly.

It is feared that this will trigger a fire incident in the midst of the current dry and windy conditions.

"We remind the public to be aware of the occurrence of forest and land fires by not burning garbage and throwing cigarette butts carelessly," he said.

More than tens of hectares of forest and land in Belitung caught fire during the dry season. Fires in forest areas occur almost every day.

The Pangkalpinang Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) noted that around 69 hotspots were monitored evenly in the Bangka Belitung (Babel) area on Tuesday (29/8).

BMKG Pangkalpinang forecaster Akhmad Fadholi explained that the hotspots were observed to be evenly distributed from the tip of Bangka Island to Belitung which occurred throughout the day at 07.00-23.00 WIB.

From northern and southern Bangka, to northern and southern Belitung, hotspots were found.

Kondisi saat ini sedang terjadi fase yang sangat kering akibat dampak dari fenomena El Nino yang terjadi secara global terspecifis Babel.

For the concentration of the Central and South Bangka areas, hotspots were observed to be slightly high from other areas.