Fired gutted protected forest in Tanjungpinang
Antara 23 Feb 08;
Tanjungpinang (ANTARA News) - The only protected forest in Tanjungpinang, capital of Riau Islands Province, was destroyed by fire at 16:00 on Friday.
The fire had been put out in three hours by fire fighters of the city and Bintan district, Tanjungpinang City Police Chief Adjunct Commissioner Imam Widodo told Antara.
However, the cause of the fire was still unknown.
The forest covered 10 hectares of land.
The fire fighters could easily put out the flames as the forest has abundant water sources.
Residents living near the forest panicked when they saw smoke in the air blanketing their homes.
Some of them were ready to leave their homes to safer places, but cancelled their plan because the flames were already put out. (*)
Haze engulfing Bukittingi growing thicker
Antara 23 Feb 08;
Padang, West Sumatra (ANTARA) - Haze engulfing West Sumatra city of Bukittinggi in the last four days as the result of forest fires in neigbouring Riau province had become thicker, a report said.
Several residents in the tourist resort city told Antara here on Friday that the increasingly thick haze has also affected the vision of motorists.
Junaidi, a Metereology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) staff member in Tabing, Padang, said the haze came from Riau province.
Recently, two hotspots were spotted in the forests in Pesisir Selatan district and two forest fires broke out in Padang city, he said.
The local authority had also extinguished a hotspot in Bung Hatta ptotected park.
In the meantime, the BMG in Pekanbaru city said the number of hotspots in Riau had been increasing by 300 percent.
The NOAA 18 satellite in its latest observation said that the number of hotspots in Riau had inreached from 10 to 34. (*)
