Salim Osman, Straits Times 24 Feb 08;
JAKARTA - PARTS of Riau province in Sumatra were blanketed with choking smoke from land-clearing fires yesterday, and officials here warned that the haze could be headed for Singapore.
In some parts of the province, visibility was reduced to just 20m yesterday.
Thousands of face masks were distributed to residents in Dumai and Pekanbaru, the provincial capital.
Riau Governor Rusli Zainal said yesterday that the fires, which started about four days ago, were raging furiously in areas near Dumai and Bengkalis.
'Our firefighting teams just can't cope with the kind of equipment they have,' he told the Riau Pos daily.
Yesterday, fires in the village of Pelintung near Dumai forced villagers to flee for safety.
Earlier, a team of firefighters had to retreat in the face of an inferno, also near Dumai.
In addition to firemen, two helicopters have been dispatched to Riau to help douse the flames by using water bombs.
The authorities are also turning to cloud-seeding to induce rain over the parched areas.
Officials and environmentalists here agreed that unless the fires were put out soon, the haze could spread farther, to Malaysia and Singapore.
Forestry Ministry spokesman Fauzi Masyhud told The Sunday Times that the fires and the resulting smoke were the result of people taking advantage of the early onset of the dry season to clear their land.
'This is not yet the dry season, which usually occurs in July,' he said.
Environmentalist Rully Syumanda of Walhi Indonesia estimated that some 2,000ha - almost the size of 2,000 football fields - were up in smoke in Riau province.
He blamed the fires on farmers and plantation owners who go for the easy method of land-clearing by setting fire to vegetation.
'The government has said it has implemented a plan to encourage local farmers to use other methods of land-clearing instead of the destructive slash-
and-burn techniques, but we don't see this being carried out on the ground,' he told The Sunday Times.
He added that although nine suspected fire-starters were arrested last week, 'law enforcement is still lacking because the authorities are not taking action against the plantation owners for fear of scaring away investors'.
'If no rain falls in the next few days and, depending on the wind direction, Malaysia and Singapore should brace themselves for the haze,' he said.
Singapore's National Environment Agency said yesterday that drier weather conditions in the past two weeks have resulted in more dust particles in the air, leading to slightly elevated Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) levels of 51 to 54 in recent days. A reading of 51 to 100 is considered moderate.
The 24-hour PSI at 4pm yesterday was 52.
Although some hot spots have been detected in Riau - 100 last Thursday and 50 last Friday - the prevailing north-easterly monsoon winds have kept the haze away from Singapore.
The north-east monsoon season is expected to last till late next month. Even so, there would be occasions during this period when wind directions could change.
WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY TAN DAWN WEI
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