Cases Of Forest And Land Fires Have Increased Over The Past Week

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JAKARTA - The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) noted that forest and land fires (karhutla) were dominating the territory of Indonesia on August 15-24.

Acting Head of the BNPB Disaster Data, Information and Communication Center Abdul Muhari in an online Disaster Briefing, said that forest and land fires had become the dominant disaster for two consecutive weeks.

"This means that the dry trend in several places that trigger forest and land fires needs to be very, very careful," Abdul said as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, August 22.

In addition to the 16 forest and land fires, other hydrometeorological disasters that occurred were nine floods, nine extreme weather events, and two landslides. In this week, 36 disasters have occurred.

From the distribution of areas where forest and land fires occur, including the west coast of Southwest Aceh and South Aceh, then in Rokan Hulu, Riau, in South Sumatra, parts of Kalimantan, and also in several places in East Java.

"East Java is not a peat area, but perhaps because of sufficient drought it can trigger forest and land fires, this has also occurred twice in Mojokerto and Situbondo," said Abdul.

BNPB has provided and alerted approximately 20 helicopters, both surveillance helicopters and water bombing helicopters, to be able to extinguish forest fires in the event of a forest fire.

A number of hotspots that have developed quite a lot, but so far it is still quite under control.