Indonesia: Haze spreads to Sulawesi as fires rage in Kalimantan

Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Straits Times AsiaOne 18 Oct 15'

Forest and land fires in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province have intensified in recent days with strong winds carrying the haze for the first time this year across to Sulawesi island to its east.

Central Kalimantan is one of the two worst-hit provinces during this year's haze season in Indonesia, the other being South Sumatra. Most Indonesian farmers and plantation firms opt to clear land by burning it to make way for planting, ahead of the rainy season that should have started in October but was delayed due to the El Nino phenomenon.

The spreading fires in Kalimantan come as massive firefighting efforts for the past week, with international help, have been focused on South Sumatra province.

The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) in Palangkaraya, capital of Central Kalimantan, reached a peak of 1,889 last Friday at 9am before going down to 1,063 at 10pm the same day. Any measure above 350 is considered hazardous. PSI readings for yesterday were not available.

In Palembang, capital of South Sumatra, the PSI went up as high as 475 on Friday at 9am and improved slightly to 379 at night.

Haze from fires in Sumatra has regularly blown across the borders to Singapore and Malaysia, due to geographical proximity.

The focus of the water-bombing operations in Central Kalimantan has been Pulang Pisau, Kapuas and Seruyan regencies, where most of the hot spots are, said Ms Rani Anggraini of the Central Kalimantan governor's office. Another regency, Katingan, is easily reachable by ground firefighters.

Two water-bombing aircraft stationed in Palangkaraya were recently moved to Pangkalan Bun, about 260km to the south-west, as thick haze in Palangkaraya had prevented take-offs, said Mr Tri Budiarto, a deputy chairman in charge of emergency response at the national disaster management agency (BNPB).

Another aircraft from Palangkaraya was moved to Banjarbaru, some 150km to the south-east, according to Mr Tri, who was in Palangkaraya yesterday, where he spoke to The Sunday Times by phone.

"We have seen a concentration of haze building up in the past three days over Kalimantan. Fires were emerging on the left and right of the Trans- Kalimantan road as we drove through Pulang Pisau on Friday," he said.

He said the prevailing winds were blowing the haze from the surrounding burning land to Palangkaraya, which had very thick haze yesterday. The winds, blowing from west to east, had also caused the haze over Kalimantan to travel to Sulawesi last Friday and yesterday.

On the situation yesterday, Ms Rani said: "Fires had been put out but re-emerged and the winds were very strong on Friday, allowing the fires to spread faster."

"We are asking Jakarta to send in two more water-bombing choppers. Early last week, two water-bombing aircraft arrived here to add to the existing ones."

Haze crisis spreads with hot spots found in Papua
Apriadi Gunawan and Nethy Darma Somba, The Jakarta Post 18 Oct 15;

The intensity of smoke produced by peatland and forest fires has remained at alarming levels in many parts of the country, reaching as far as Papua, which usually does not suffer from forest fires.

In Deli Serdang regency, North Sumatra, the operator of Kualanamu International Airport reported that thick haze in several regions in Sumatra had affected at least eight flights scheduled to depart on Saturday from the province’s biggest airport.

“Four flights have been canceled and four others have been delayed due to thick haze that has been blanketing the destination cities,” Kualanamu duty manager Jasirin said on Saturday.

Visibility at the airport, meanwhile, was recorded at 1,000 meters on Saturday, 500 meters below the normal level.

The four canceled flights, according to Jasirin, were operated by Garuda Indonesia, Citilink, Lion Air and Wings Air. The Garuda flight was initially scheduled to leave Kualanamu for Lhokseumawe, Aceh, while the one operated by Wings was supposed to fly to Sibolga, North Sumatra. The two flights operated by Citilink and Lion Air were scheduled to fly to Batam, Riau Islands.

Due to the disruptions, Kualanamu’s departure hall was packed with stranded airline passengers by Saturday afternoon.

Many regions in Indonesia, including Riau, Jambi, North Sumatra, South Sumatra and Central Kalimantan, have been struggling for the past several months to anticipate the impacts of smoke produced by both man-made and natural land and forest fires.

On Friday, the Health Ministry reported that the haze crisis had caused more than 425,000 people in the worst-affected provinces to suffer from acute respiratory infections. The disaster, meanwhile, has also been exacerbated by this year’s long dry season triggered by the El Niño weather phenomenon, and has recently spread eastward.

In Papua, local authorities have since Thursday closed Mozes Kilangin International Airport in Timika, Mimika regency, due to thick haze that has severely reduced visibility in the area.

“The visibility has dropped from 500 meters on Friday to only 400 meters today [Saturday],” Mimika Transportation, Communications and Information Agency head John Rettob said, adding that he suspected the haze came from land and forest fires in the southern part of Papua.

Earlier on Friday, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency’s (BMKG) Region V Jayapura office reported that it had detected 104 hot spots in southern areas, with 92 spotted in Merauke regency and the remaining 12 in Mappi regency.

Local residents have also expressed disappointment on the worsening air pollution.

“Timika has become dark due to the haze, even though we have been switching on lights in the afternoon,” said Saldi, a local resident.

In South Sulawesi, the Maros Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) on Saturday reported that it had deployed personnel to extinguish fires that had been spotted in some parts of Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park in Cenrana district.

Maros BPBD head Sayuti said the fires had initially come from a neighboring educational forest, which belongs to Hasanuddin University (Unhas) and has been recently burned by fires.

“Although we managed to put out fires in the Unhas forest, they spread to some parts of the nearby conservation forest since yesterday [Friday],” Sayuti said.

A recent study, meanwhile, has revealed the catastrophic impact of forest fires in Indonesia, catapulting the country’s CO2 emissions over Germany’s total annual emissions.

The study, done by VU University Amsterdam, showed that land and forest fires in Indonesia this year had released an estimated one billion metric tons, or a gigaton, of carbon dioxide as of Wednesday.

“Fire emissions are already higher than Germany’s total CO2 emissions, and the fire season is not over yet,” said Guido van der Werf, a researcher at the university who keeps a database that tracks global emissions from wildfires.

Furthermore, since September, daily emissions from Indonesia’s fires exceeded daily emissions from the entire US economy, which is 20 times larger than Indonesia’s, on 26 days, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI).

— Hans Nicholas Jong in Jakarta and Andi Hajramurni in Makassar contributed
to this article.

- See more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/10/18/haze-crisis-spreads-with-hot-spots-found-papua.html#sthash.EV6aglOV.dpuf

Smoke paralyzes air travel in Papua
Nethy Dharma Somba, thejakartapost.com 18 Oct 15;

Authorities at Rendani Airport in Manokwari, West Papua imposed airspace restrictions on Sunday as thick smoke from land and forest fires reduced visibility to below 2,000 meters.

“A Garuda flight scheduled to fly into Manokwari today has been canceled. Hopefully conditions improve and planes will be able to land tomorrow,” General manager of the Jayapura branch of Garuda Indonesia, Wahyu, told thejakartapost.com on Sunday. The company informed passengers of the cancellation via text message.

Wahyu explained that smoke began covering the area on Saturday; however, pilots were able to land at the airport during the day. “Today, our flight will not transit in Manokwari. It will fly directly to Sorong and then to Makassar,” he said.

Meanwhile, an airport official requesting anonymity said thick smoke had shrouded Manokwari since Sunday morning, forcing several airlines to cancel flights. Only an Express flight from Sorong managed to land in Rendani.

The head of the Meteorology, Climatology, Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Jayapura, Sem Padamma, said thick smoke covering Manokwari came from several hot spots in areas around Ransiki.

Padamma further said that BMKGJayapura had detected five hot spots across Manokwari on Sunday, namely in South Manokwari and Pegunungan Arfak, which recorded two hot spots each, and one hot spot in Manokwari city.

Padamma said that apart from Manokwari, three other areas in West Papua, namely Bintuni, South Sorong, and the Gulf of Berauw, were blanketed with smoke.

Head of BMKG Jayapura said smoke covering Mosez Kilangin Airport in Timika had begun to recede. “The sky is getting clearer. Hopefully, flights can land at the airport on Monday,” he said. (ebf)