Long Drought, 3 Hectares Of Forest In Trenggalek Burned

Illustration of rain fires (ANTARA)

TRENGGALEK - The impact of the prolonged dry season has caused forest and land fires (karhutla) to occur again in the Trenggalek area, East Java. This time, the flames scorched 3 hectares of forest areas in Bukit Tunggangan, Kendalrejo Village, Durenan District, Sunday, October 22.

The size of the wind plus shrubs on the dry Tunggangan hill, made the fire quickly scorched trees in the hill area.

Joint officers from the fire department, BPBD, Polri, TNI and a number of residents worked together to extinguish the forest and land fires on the Tunggangan hill.

The extinguishing process is carried out manually, because fire engines cannot reach the scene.

Durenan Police Chief AKP Andi Salbi said the fire was known to have started at 11.00 pm. The dry forest conditions caused the fire to quickly spread and burned 3 hectares of forest area owned by Perhutani and the community.

"After 2 and a half hours of extinguishing efforts, the fire was successfully extinguished and did not spread to residential areas. And the total forest belonging to Perhutani that caught fire reached 3 hectares," he said.

From the results of data collection, most of the burned areas were in forest areas belonging to Perhutani, while a small part of them entered community land.

To prevent further fires, officers appealed to the public not to carry out arson activities around forest areas.