Almost Even In 17 Regencies/Cities, South Sumatra's Forest And Land Fires Increased In The Last 1 Month

Illustration of forest and land fires extinguishing using helicopters. (Between-Mushaful)

SOUTH SUMATRA - The potential for forest and land fires (karhutla) in South Sumatra Province has increased in the past month. The distribution of hotspots is almost evenly distributed in every 17 districts/cities.

Head of the Emergency Management Division of the South Sumatra Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) Ansori, said the disaster management monitoring team noted that as of April 26, 2023, 200 hotspots had been observed.

The number of hot spots spread increased previously, previously it was known that in the same period in March 2023, only 91 hotspots were observed.

"The 200 hotspots are almost spread across 17 regencies and cities, or with an average of at least 11 hotspots found," he said in Palembang, South Sumatra, Thursday, April 27, which was confiscated by Antara.

Meanwhile, his party noted that the highest number of hotspots was observed in the Musi Rawas (48 hotspots) and North Musi Rawas (33 hotspots) areas, the majority of which were unproductive mineral lands.

According to him, the increasing number of hot spots is feared to spread further along with the hot weather that has been going on for several weeks.

For this reason, the provincial government is currently starting to activate the operation of Weather Modification Technology (TMC) as an effort to tackle forest and land fires.

The TMC was activated after the Governor of South Sumatra Herman Deru issued his permit, on Wednesday, April 26, which was then forwarded to every regional head in 17 local districts and cities.

TMC is a modification activity or engineering the weather to increase the potential for rain to fall, among others by seeding large amounts of salt into potential clouds.

This potential needs to be mitigated because it will have an impact on the availability of water for agriculture, hydropower, tourism, and economic impacts in 2015.

In addition, according to him, the data obtained from the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment of the Republic of Indonesia Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan at that time forest and land fires resulted in a drought of 597 thousand hectares of rice plants including in South Sumatra.