Aid pours in as fires still rage in E. Kalimantan

JAKARTA (JP): Reports of spreading forest and brush fires in East Kalimantan have prompted several countries to offer the government fire-fighting equipment, a cabinet minister has said.

Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo symbolically received the foreign aid transferred by the National Coordinating Board for Disaster Prevention here Tuesday.

The donating countries are China, Japan, Finland, Norway and France. They are among those who last year pledged to assist Indonesia fight forest fires.

The equipment includes helicopters plus personnel, fire pumps, fire extinguishers, helmets, walkie-talkies, jackets, pants, shovels and boots.

Azwar Anas, the board's chairman said the concerted efforts of the government, the Armed Forces, forest rangers, students and local people to extinguish the fires were bearing fruit in an area of 4,430 hectares that was on fire.

He said the number of hot spots in East Kalimantan had declined to 70 on Tuesday from 895 the day before due to the efforts.

He said the government would focus its fire fighting efforts on the Kutai National Park due to its richness in plant and animal species.

But Azwar said that despite the all-out efforts with the aid of international donors, it appeared that everything would depend on mother nature.

The minister said the Asian Regional Meeting on the El Nino Related Crisis in Bangkok earlier this month predicted that the Pacific weather pattern would end in June.

"But there is a possibility that El Nino will be replaced by the La Nina weather pattern in June, which will induce heavy downpours and floods in Indonesia. It is also possible that El Nino will continue until September," he said.

El Nino is a warming of the Pacific Ocean that has wreaked climatic havoc across the globe.

Azwar warned people to prepare for the worst scenario possible.

The president of state-owned timber company PT Inhutani, I Abdul Fattah, on Tuesday denied allegations that his company had started the fires.

He said fires in the company's concession area were caused by nomadic slash-and-burn farmers clearing land along rivers outside its area. The fires then spread into the concession, he added.

Fires have ravaged at least 1,900 hectares of the company's concession area, Abdul said, but the situation was brought under control after the company called in firefighters and forest rangers.

Warning

AFP reported that a weatherman warned in Singapore yesterday that smoke from bush fires in Indonesia could reach Singapore and parts of mainland Malaysia as early as March and the likelihood of spreading smog would increase when the new monsoon started in May.

Lim Tian Kuay, deputy director of the Meteorological Services Department, said the area would soon undergo a transition between two monsoons, and variable winds in March and April could send smoke toward Singapore if fires raged on.

Forest fires have been monitored in Kalimantan and on Sumatra; most are believed to have been deliberately started to clear land for cultivation.

The severe financial crisis has raised fears that the government's fire-fighting efforts could be crippled, and Southeast Asia could undergo a repetition of last year's hazy conditions which affected millions and drove away foreign tourists from the region.

"Over the next two months we are going through the transitional period when there is a possibility of winds blowing from the direction of the source of fires over Singapore and surrounding areas," Lim told AFP.

"From May to about August, we are in the south-west monsoon period when winds are mostly from the south, and there is a greater likelihood that the winds will come from the direction of the source of the fires," he said.