BNPB Tightens Dry Ice Seeding Procedures
Jakarta (ANTARA) — Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has reviewed and tightened its standard operating procedures after residents reported finding dry ice that had fallen in a residential area during weather-modification operations.
Berton Panjaitan, acting head of BNPB’s Centre for Disaster Data, Information and Communication, said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the procedures had been strengthened by installing special filters in the dispersal chute and breaking the dry ice into finer particles so that it would evaporate in the air before reaching the ground.
The technical review and adjustments are intended to ensure that weather-modification technology (OMC) using dry ice, or solid carbon dioxide at an extremely low temperature of minus 78.5 degrees Celsius, can be used safely in efforts to disperse the build-up of haze from forest and land fires.
He previously explained that dry ice is released from aircraft into an inversion layer at an altitude of 5,000–7,000 feet to trigger rapid cooling in the atmosphere. This is intended to push smoke trapped in the lower layer upwards, allowing it to spread over a wider area.
BNPB said trials of the OMC technology had improved visibility. At Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II Airport in Palembang, South Sumatra, seeding with dry-ice particles about three millimetres in size on 16 October 2026 improved visibility compared with the previous day.
The aerial operation, carried out in South Sumatra since 16 October 2026, is a collaboration between BNPB, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG). It uses a Casa 212 aircraft, registration A-2117. The operation was officially expanded to Central Kalimantan on 19 October 2026, using a Casa 212-200, registration A-2107.
The dry-ice technology complements the deployment of 49 aircraft nationwide: 32 for water bombing and 17 for patrols and weather modification. The aerial response is also supported by more than 60,000 personnel on the ground across six priority provinces.
The combined aerial and ground response, now subject to tighter procedures, had extinguished fires across 454.25 hectares out of a total target area of 1,024.33 hectares as of 19 October 2026. The six priority provinces are Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan.
“[The area extinguished] has reached 454.25 hectares. The public is urged to continue wearing masks when outdoors and not to engage in activities that could trigger forest fires, for everyone’s safety,” Berton said.