Fires engulf tens of hectares of teak forests in Jombang

Antara 18 Aug 08;

Jombang (ANTARA News) - Fire engulfed tens of hectares of teak forest under the management of the state owned forestry company (Perhutani) in Gempol, Jombang district, East Java.

Some of the company`s employees were deployed to the location of fire, but Monday afternoon they were still unable to put out the flames.

"Our personnel deployed to the location were limited, so that the flames cannot be extinguished totaLly," Gempol Perhutani`s Chief Priyono said here on Monday.

According to him, in the beginning the fires only burnt the teak trees in the vicinity of Sumberboto tourist resort in the past week.

After that the fire spread to other teak forests which are under Perhutani`s management of Purwodadi and Gedangan. "Until now the fire is still raging. Frankly speaking we have difficulty in putting out the fire as the wind continues to blow hard," he said.

As to the cause of the fire, Priyono said it may be caused by carelessnes of some people hunting for wild animals in the forests.

Forest fires also hit several places in Riau province of Sumatra Island and Central Java province over the past few weeks, as this year`s dry season hots up.

In Riau, forest fires have created haze in the skies over the province.

Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) office head in Pekanbaru, Blucher Doloksaribu, was cited as saying that there were 111 hot spots across Riau on Aug. 1. The figure increased to 136 two days later, he added.

Thanks to intensified firefighting efforts, however, BMG Pekanbaru detected only 78 hot spots on Tuesday, said Doloksaribu.

However, the fires would continue until mid-August because rainfall was decreasing and temperatures were rising, he said.

Temperatures had reached 34.2 degrees Celsius, which may increase the forest fires, said Doloksaribu.

Riau provincial health agency has provided 30,000 masks in anticipation of haze from forest fires which have been raging in the province, Burhanudin Agung, head of the Riau public health and nutrition agency said. (*)