South Thailand Hit By More Haze From Indonesia

Bernama 2 Aug 11;

SONGKHLA, Aug 2 (Bernama) -- Forest fire smoke from Indonesia has covered many provinces in the southern part of Thailand by a new round of haze, according to Thai News Agency on Tuesday.

Chief of Thailand's Meteorological Office on the east-south coast here Wanchai Sakudomchai said that smoke from the forest fires has covered Songkhla province on Tuesday morning.

This has affected many fishing boats as they have to navigate slowly in order to prevent possible accidents due to poor visibility, he said.

The Thai News Agency reported that smaller fishing vessels have also been warned not to go out to the sea for safety reasons.

"Satellite images had shown rising spots of wildfire on the Sumatra Island and a southwest monsoon could have brought the haze to blanket Songkhla and other areas in south of Thai," he said.

The air quality index in Songkhla's Hat Yai District had stood within its standard range (58.0), he said, adding that the mild smog has not yet posed any health risk to the locals.

-- BERNAMA

Indonesia: Thick smog causes flights transfer at Dumai Airport
Antara 2 Aug 11;

Dumai, Riau (ANTARA News) - Operational chief of Pinang Kampai airport at Dumai Riau Irvan said that thick smog has caused flights to be transferred to nearby airports.

The smog that covers Dumai airport was very thick and the worst ever, especially after it caused flights transfer, Irvan said here Tuesday.

Irvan said that the airport will be reopen for flights when the smog is thinning or until more than 200 meters visibility range achieved.

Meanwhile, there is a flight transferred to airport in Pekanbaru which then be resumed to Dumai airport, a chartered Fokker 100 Pelita Air departed from Jakarta`s Halim Perdana Kusuma at 09.00 am.

The heavy smog is expected to clear out on the afternoon considering the strong wind that blows the smog wisp, and flights resumed, said Irvan.

"Fortunately the chartered Pelita Air was the only flight schedule for today, there is no schedule for any commercial flight such as Sky Aviation and Merpati," he said.

On separate occasion, Head of Forestry Department of Agriculture, Plantation and Forestry Hadiono said that the institution had received reports on peat land burn and bushfire which led the thick smog occurred on Tuesday.

"The local forest and land fires management team has also been deployed to track the hotspots locations," he said.

The team is focusing on Medang Kampai and Sungai Sembilan districts known as land and forest fire prone areas.
(Uu.A050/H-NG/F001)

Editor: Priyambodo RH

Fires Causing Haze in Riau May Close Airport
Nurfika Osman Jakarta Globe 4 Aug 11;

Thick haze from forest and ground fires has once again blanketed parts of Riau, especially the city of Dumai, drastically reducing visibility, an official said Wednesday.

The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency or BMKG said on Wednesday that a total of 131 “hotspots”— areas in satellite images indicating high temperature and most likely the presence of fire — were found in the province, reducing visibility to as little as 800 meters.

Ministry of Transportation spokesman Bambang Ervan, said there was a possibility notification would soon have to be issued to pilots warning of impaired visibility.

He said that if visibility weaken to below 1 kilometer, the Sultan Syarif Qasim II International Airport in the Riau capital, Pekanbaru, will be temporarily shut down.

However, he said that so far no flights have been canceled or delayed even though the haze had also now drifted to neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.

“We hope conditions will improve. We need related parties such as local governments and forest rangers to help reduce the hotspots,” he said.

BMKG official said that there were 298 hotspots for the whole of Sumatra on Wednesday, with Riau accounting for more than 44 percent.

However, BMKG said there was a good chance the number of hotspots could decrease in coming days since the weather is forecast to be cloudy with a small chance of light rain.

Experts have said that the haze occurs each year because people and companies continue to burn forests, a cheap method of clearing land.

The practice is illegal but enforcement has been poor because of the shortage of law enforcers and the wide area of forested land involved.

Since the 1990s, Indonesia has been criticized internationally for the large amount of smoke it generates each dry season from deliberate burning in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The resulting haze sometimes spreads to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand and is estimated to annually cause $9 billion in losses to tourism, transportation and agriculture across the region.

An agreement among Southeast Asian nations was drawn up in 2002 to jointly tackle the haze problem, but ironically, Indonesia is the only nation that has yet to ratify it.