The third-largest province in Indonesia, Central Kalimantan has declared a state of emergency from Wednesday (July 1) and will run until September 28.
It was declared after identifying more than 700 fires. At this moment, the level of emergency is at the first stage of alert which calls for early extinguishing efforts and increased patrols.
“Efforts to mitigate forest fires are underway because almost every region in Central Kalimantan entered the dry season in July,” said Alpius Patanan who is an official with province’s disaster mitigation agency.
Indonesia is known as the largest producer of palm oil. Every year, forest burning has been practiced to clear areas for palm oil cultivation.
In 2019, around 1.6 million hectares of forest and peatland have been burned and damaged because of the practices.
“Fire hot spots could potentially be bigger and spread to remote peatland areas, especially in the burned areas from 2019 that are not yet restored,” said Kiki Taufik, head of the Greenpeace forests campaign in Indonesia.
“And the haze could be potentially thicker or similar to last year,” added Taufik.
Source: BFM News, Channel News Asia