Riau Karhutla Task Force Puts Out 9 Hotspots

The Karhutla Task Force extinguished nine hotspots in Riau. Between/HO-HUmas BPBD Riau.

The Riau Province Forest and Land Fire Task Force (Karhutla) extinguished nine hotspots in Bengkalis Regency, Rokan Hilir Regency, Kampar Regency and Pekanbaru City as of Sunday (18/6).

"Of the nine hotspots, among others, they came from one extinguishing point in Rokan Hilir Regency, three cooling points and one extinguishing point in Bengkalis," said Head of Prevention and Preparedness of the Riau Province BPBD, Eko RahdIPa, as reported by ANTARA, Monday, June 19.

He said the burned land was also at a blackout point in Pekanbaru, and six outages in Kampar. So a total of 4 cooling points and 9 extinguishing points.

For Monday (19/6), he said, the task force had extinguished again in Bengkalis Regency using the N332N Superpuma helicopter.

"For the blackout process, based on the priority scale of the regions that experienced the fire, especially areas that were observed to have hotspots were areas that were peat because they were very flammable," he said.

Eko said, to prevent new hotspots from spreading, it is necessary to continue to monitor directly to the field by land or air.

"For air monitoring, the Riau BPBD deployed two patrol helicopters and one water booming helicopter," he said.

Meanwhile, based on data as of June 1-19, 2023, there were 762 hotspots spread across 12 districts/cities in Riau Province. The land that has been extinguished is 565.26 hectares.