The El Nino Phenomenon Makes Jakarta Prone To Fires, This Is The Reason

Illustration of fire engines in action. (photo: dock. Pixabay)

Head of the DKI Jakarta Fire and Rescue (Gulkarmat) Agency, Satriadi Gunawan, said that the capital city is becoming more prone to fires during the El Nino phenomenon. According to the prediction of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the El Nino phenomenon will strengthen in August-September 2023. It is feared that the El Nino phenomenon will cause an extreme dry season similar to the dry season that occurred in 2019. Satriadi said that rising temperatures in the dry season affect people's lifestyles in using electricity that are more massive than usual. "Increasing the use of electricity that is not wise can cause electronic devices, electrical cables, and electrical installations to become more susceptible to disturbances or short circuits," said Satriadi in his statement, Wednesday, August 16. In addition, Satriadi said, the dry season also has an impact on the lack of water sources which are the main ingredients in extinguishing fires. "If a fire occurs, it will have an impact on the difficulty of the extinguishing process which will result in faster fire propagation, as well as greater losses. Therefore, we invite the public to be wiser in using electricity in the dry season as it is today," said Satriadi. During January-July 2023, there have been 1,034 fire incidents. Then, on August 1-15, 2023, there had been 88 fires in DKI Jakarta. The cause of the most fires during August was the electricity factor with 42 incidents. Then, another cause is the burning of 19 waste incidents, 7 gas explosions, 4 cigarette punting/fire events, and 15 others as many as the incident.

"Based on this data, the use of electricity is still the biggest factor causing the fire in DKI Jakarta," added Satriadi.