BPBD Asks Papuans To Beware Of Forest And Land Fires Due To El Nino

Papua BPBD personnel simulated public kitchens. (ANTARA-Muhsidin)

PAPUA - The Papua Province Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) invites people in its area to anticipate the impact of El Nino's weather changes by preventing potential forest and land fires or forest and land fires.

"Residents in Papua are advised not to burn land when opening gardens. This bad habit is very dangerous and must be prevented so that it is no longer done," said Head of BPBD Papua Welliam Robert Manderi when contacted, Sunday, May 7, as quoted by Antara.

He said that to deal with hot weather changes in Papua, disaster mitigation measures were needed for residents in districts/cities.

Efforts to prevent disasters in the regions, according to Manderi, need to be carried out disaster education and mitigation so that it can reduce the impact of risks that can endanger the safety of local residents.

"I invite the district/city BPBD in Papua Province to continue to disseminate disaster prevention so that people are ready when facing situations that we don't want," he said.

Moreover, a number of regencies/cities in Papua, he said, are included in disaster-prone areas, so community preparedness needs to be continuously improved through education on the mitigation of natural disasters.

In addition, the availability of disaster equipment and logistics owned by BPBD districts/cities assisted by BNPB, such as tents, soup kitchen cooking ingredients and operational vehicles must be properly maintained because they are very much needed when facing difficult situations when there is a natural disaster.

"Natural disasters no one knows when it will happen so that community preparedness and regency/city BPBD personnel must always be improved," he said.

To increase community preparedness to deal with natural disasters, residents are educated by following reports on the development of weather information from the local BMKG.