BMKG Urges Vigilance Against Fires Amid Rising Hotspots

Balikpapan (ANTARA) - The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Balikpapan Station is urging all stakeholders, including community members and government entities involved in forestry and plantations, to be wary of fire threats due to the high number of detected hotspots.

“We have detected 32 hotspots scattered across five regencies/cities in East Kalimantan Province,” said Carolina Meylita Sibarani, Head of the Data and Information Team at the Class I Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan Balikpapan BMKG Station, in Balikpapan on Wednesday.

The call for vigilance includes advising residents not to burn rubbish indiscriminately to prevent the fire from spreading to other areas, and not to discard smouldering cigarette butts to avoid embers igniting dry leaves in forests or plantation lands.

For government entities such as the Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD), they are urged to check the hotspots already detected by BMKG.

In particular, these hotspots come with coordinate points that can be directly verified by BPBD teams along with relevant parties in each area.

She continued that the 32 hotspots in the five regencies/cities were detected on Tuesday (24/3) from 01:00 to 24:00 WITA, namely 1 point in Bontang City, 10 points in Paser Regency, 1 point in West Kutai Regency, 16 points in East Kutai Regency, and 4 points in Kutai Kartanegara Regency.

The details are as follows: 1 point in Bontang is located in Bontang Selatan Subdistrict with a high confidence level. 1 point in West Kutai is in Linggang Bigung Subdistrict with a high confidence level.

Then, 4 points in Kutai Kartanegara: two in Loa Janan Subdistrict, 1 in Muara Kaman Subdistrict, and 1 in Tenggarong Seberang Subdistrict. All have a high confidence level.

Furthermore, 10 points in Paser, all located in Batu Sopang Subdistrict across several villages. All these hotspots also have a high confidence level.