Ganug Nugroho Adi, The Jakarta Post 6 Oct 15;
Firefighter teams have not yet been able to extinguish fires that have raged across forests on the slope of Mount Merbabu in Boyolali regency, Central Java, and Sigi regency, Central Sulawesi.
The fire that has been burning in Mt Merbabu for over a week had even expanded to local people’s agricultural fields in Ngagrong area, Ampel district, Boyolali, as of Monday this week.
“We have been deploying around 160 to 200 volunteers every day, excluding local people, soldiers and police personnel, but the fire is still big, and has spread to 12 locations,” Boyolali Disaster Mitigation Agency’s (BPBD) SAR commander Kurniawan Fajar Prasetyo said on Monday.
He said the fire spread to the forest to the north of Ganduman hamlet in Sampetan subdistrict, Ampel, burning down some 45 hectares of fields.
The fire, according to Kurniawan, initially began in the grass area and bushes on the peak of Merbabu and later expanded and eventually burned protected forest areas.
The volunteers, he added, had tried to block the fire, but failed due to difficulties accessing the field and strong winds.
Separately, SAR deputy chairman Bakat Setiawan said that there were concerns the fire had damaged the 2.5-kilometer clean water pipeline that took water from a spring on the slope of the volcano and was the main source of clean water for local people.
The fire is the third and so far the biggest to hit the Mount Merbabu area during this year’s dry season.
Head of the Merbabu forest fire mitigation post, Capt. Joko Priyanto who is also Ampel military rayon commander, said that the joint force would continue their efforts to extinguish the fire.
“The firefighter team has over 500 members. They take turns going to the fire sites every day to try to extinguish them,” said Joko, adding that the fire was still burning in a number of spots including in forests in Sampetan, Candisari and Ngargoloko subdistricts.
Joko said the areas affected by the fires were located between 2,000 and 2,500 meters above sea level, and that the mountainous terrain had hampered the team’s efforts to extinguish the fire.
He said it took some six hours for the team to reach the fire locations.
Meanwhile, in Sigi regency, local military personnel and residents also joined firefighters to help battle local blazes.
“The Lore-Lindu National Park (TNLL) management and local people have since Friday joined together to extinguish the fire, but the blaze has continued to expand as the fire is in a location that is difficult to access,” head of TNLL Center’s conservation technique division, Ahmad Yani, said as quoted by Antara in Palu on Monday.
He said the center had deployed three joint teams so far, but the fire fighting was still being conducted manually using traditional equipment.
Quoting reports, Yani said that the fires affected forests in Dongi-Dongi, Togoa, Kamarora and Lemban Tongoa villages in Sigi regency. Of them, Kamarora in Nokilalaki district was among the worst affected.
Yani also said the center had not yet been able to make a detailed inventory of the areas affected by fires, saying that to ensure the information was correct they had to fully inspect the affected areas.
“We focus on extinguishing the fire first to prevent it from expanding further,” said Yani, adding that strong winds made fire fighting efforts even more difficult.
“Hopefully there will be rain in the region within the next few days that will extinguish the fire,” he said.
