40 Hectares Of Land In Kotawaringin Burns, Local Government Needs Fire Helicopter Assistance

Land fire in Palangan Village, Iron City District, Sampit, East Kotawaringin Regency, Central Kalimantan (ANTARA)

Land fires occur in Palangan Village, Besi City District, East Kotawaringin Regency, Central Kalimantan (Central Kalimantan), and require outages to be effective so that they do not continue to spread. "If possible water bombing outages (water bombings) are certainly faster. We saw yesterday that there were helicopters passing. Hopefully this can be used here because these fires still have the potential to occur," said Head of Palangan Village, Anastasius Delik, quoted by ANTARA, Friday, August 4. Delik explained that fires were known to have started on Tuesday at around 15.00 WIB and were immediately attempted to extinguish them. However, because they occurred in peatlands, the fire quickly expanded due to old rain did not fall, thus making peat dry and easy to burn. As of Thursday night, the burned land was estimated to have reached 40 hectares. The location of the fire was not far from the village center, however the fire could not be extinguished due to limited access to water sources so that the fire continued to spread. The Fire Care Society (MPA) local villages assisted by a number of palm oil plantation companies PT SSM and PT GAP continued to try to extinguish the fire. However, the widespread distribution was quite difficult for efforts in the field. The company lowered the fire squad with complete equipment. In addition, they lowered the excavator to make a ditch or bulk so that the fire could be localized. Delik mentioned the burning land belongs to the community. It is not yet known whether there was an element of intent in the incident. "We together with the sub-district head, Kapolsek, and other elements also went down to the location to help extinguish the fire. The police are still investigating the cause of the fire. Currently what we expect is assistance for the fire outage," said Delik. Head of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) Kotawaringin Timur Multzam said efforts to extinguish the field were constrained by access to water sources. His party also coordinated with related agencies, such as Manggala Agni and others, to maximize the effort to extinguish outage.

"The report we received of the fire occurred in Hanjalipan Village, then in Palangan Village. Tomorrow we will check in the field. If water bombing is needed, we will ask the province for help to extinguish the fire by air," said Multazam. He thanked and asked the company to continue to help extinguish the fire until the fire was completely over. The company is not only obliged to prevent fires in the concession area, but is also expected to continue to assist in preventing and handling forest and land fires in villages around their companies.