Haze worsens in Sarawak

Stephen Then and Chew Wan Ying, The Star 12 Aug 09;

MIRI: Fires in some districts and oil palm plantations has created a thick blanket of smoke and haze over Sarawak’s northern region.

Firemen have been working around the clock to bring the blaze under control as well battle peat fires near the Sarawak-Brunei border.

The haze and smoke have resulted in flight disruptions and cancellation of public functions.

Fires were also reported at oil palm plantations in the Bakong sub-district, between Miri and the Baram hinterland.

Quick action by firemen prevented a wild fire on Canada Hill from burning down the RM16mil Oil Museum yesterday.

Poor visibility in the city resulted in the cancellation of flights from Miri Airport to the interiors yesterday morning.

At the Sarawak-Brunei border, 35km north of Miri, more than 200 firemen are battling to contain peat fires that have so far destroyed more than 3,000ha of forest land.

Assistant state minister for Infrastructure Development and Communications Datuk Lee Kim Shin said the peat fire might take a longer time to put out.

“The fire is burning deep into the peat soil. Spraying water on the surface will not douse it,” he said.

In the Lawas district near the Sabah border, a few public functions had to be cancelled.

In Kuching, cloud-seeding operations have started.

In Petaling Jaya, the Department of Environment said air quality in Sarawak had generally improved, with only two areas having unhealthy air quality.

The Air Pollutant Index (API) reading for Miri rose from 140 on Monday to a staggering 185 while Sibu recorded a reading of 104 as of 5pm yesterday.

Four areas in Sarawak, Kuching, Sarikei, Sri Aman and Samarahan, which were previously identified as unhealthy on Monday, have entered the moderate category, with readings of between 61 and 84.

Overall, 26 areas recorded moderate readings of between 51 and 84, while the air quality in 20 areas, including Petaling Jaya were declared as healthy.

Following the improved air quality, the visibility level in Bintulu increased to 8km. This is in contrast to Kuching which recorded a poor invisibility level of 2km.

A total of 106 and 74 hotspots were detected in Sumatra and Borneo respectively via satellite images.

Hot spots spreading over land belonging to 77 firms
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 11 Aug 09;

A government investigating team has found fire hot spots spread across concessions belonging to 77 companies operating in Riau during the first-seven months that forced the closure of thousands of schools due to thick haze.

A team from the environment ministry is still investigating the sources of forest fires on land owned by the forest concession holders and industrial timber and plantation firms.

“We want to find out for sure if the fires were lit by the respective firms or by local residents,” Hilmar Sirait, an assistant to the ministry’s deputy for law enforcement, said Tuesday.

“There’s also the possibility these companies are hiring local people to burn the land.”

Nine hundred hot spots have been recorded in the province in the period from January to July, ministry data shows. A hot spot is defined as a fire covering at least 1 hectare of land.

Neighboring nations ready to help RI tackle fires
Adianto P. Simamora The Jakarta Post 11 Aug 09;

With forest fires expected to fan out in the next few months due to a severe dry spell, neighboring countries are offering their help in controlling the infernos, a minister says.

State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said Monday he was scheduled to meet in Singapore with ministers from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei Darussalam to discuss the forest fires.

The steering committee for the meeting, to be held on Aug. 19, will also seek ways to prevent the repeated large-scale burning that blankets neighboring countries in haze.

"We have very good cooperation with neighboring nations in dealing with the fires," Rachmat told The Jakarta Post.

"They're committed to helping us tackle them."

He did not detail what sort of assistance had been offered.

"The governments of Malaysia and Singapore have provided equipment to monitor air quality, including in Riau," he said.

Indonesia is the largest forest nation in the region, with 120 million hectares of rainforest.

Rachmat warned Indonesia was very vulnerable to huge forest fires if the El Ni*o phenomenon hit the country this year.

Analysts say El Ni*o will cause massive forest fires, as it did in 2006, when fires ravaged more than 145,000 hectares of forest here.

The 2006 fire also affected millions of people in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and parts of Thailand, forcing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to apologize to the neighboring countries for the export of haze.

Those countries also deployed helicopters to put out the fires.

The Malaysian government said Monday it was ready to help Indonesia tackle forest fires, but only if Jakarta requested it.

Malaysia's Housing and Local Government Minister Kong Cho Ha said the country would send experts to Indonesia, but added no request had been made so far.

Malaysia is experiencing thick haze as fires continue to rage across 5,300 hotspots in Indonesia, mostly in Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra and West Kalimantan.

Kong said the haze drifting from Indonesia had been a regular event since 1998, between July and September, due to the winds.

Malaysia is also grappling with several forest and plantation fires that have caused an unhealthy air pollution index (API) in the cities of Sibu, Miri and Kuching.

"In the weeks following the haze, firefighters put out forest fires in 2,000 of 2,560 hectares, with the worst affected being Miri," Kong said as quoted by Antara.

Rachmat pledged to submit findings on forest fires in Riau to the police.

Thick haze from peatland fires has also blanketed Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan.

The Palangkaraya Health Office reported 1,882 people suffered from respiratory problems due to the haze in the first week of this month.

During El Ni*o of 1982-1983, fires razed 3.7 million hectares of forests in Kalimantan alone, worsened by commercial logging and agriculture.