Fire experts call for containment strategy in extinguishing blazes
Fire experts call for containment strategy in extinguishing blazes
By Budiman Moerdijat
SAMARINDA, East Kalimantan (JP): Fire-fighting experts,
confronting raging forest fires in this province, maintain it
would be better to focus on prevention efforts at this stage and
let the fires burn themselves out.
The Samarinda-based Integrated Forest Fire Management (IFFM)
organization -- a German-sponsored body which works with the
forestry ministry -- said the fires were so widespread that
extinguishing them was beyond any currently available
capabilities.
"There is a strong tendency to use expensive high-tech
solutions, water bombing, use of retardants, that have little or
no effect as long as infrastructure and fire-fighting capacities
on the ground are deficient," the IFFM said in a recent report.
"Cloud-seeding efforts under current conditions seem to be of
little use other than for scientific purposes," it added.
Authorities concede that cloud-seeding, water bombing and
other initiatives against the fires in recent weeks have been
unsuccessful.
Fires which have consumed more than 155,000 hectares now cover
such an extensive area that experts say fire-fighting efforts
would be futile.
The fires are exacerbated by huge burning coal deposits below
the surface.
The gravity of the situation was brought home when
environmentalists and local officials took a helicopter flight
around the area.
"The situation which could be observed was terrifying," the
IFFM report said in quoting those who took part on the trip.
"Small and large fires were burning virtually everywhere."
Hundreds of soldiers and civilians have been deployed against
the fires, which are mainly concentrated in the Kutai National
Park and Bukit Soeharto forest, respectively north and south of
Samarinda.
They are fighting a losing battle.
The fires have heightened fears of a repeat of last year's
devastating haze, when blazes in Indonesia blanketed much of
Southeast Asia with choking smog.
The IFFM rang a note of realism in its report by essentially
recommending that Indonesia should count its losses and contain
the fires, while ensuring better controls to prevent any repeat
of the disaster.
Law
Plantation and timber companies have frequently been blamed
for starting the blaze.
"Several large fires have been burning in forest conversion
and concession areas for weeks, and though the provincial
government is very serious about handling the situation, law
enforcement still seems too weak and too slow to get them under
control," the IFFM said in its report.
Minister of Environment Juwono Sudarsono said 65 percent of
the forests razed this year belonged to commercial companies. He
added that the fires were lit deliberately for land-clearing
purposes.
IFFM team leader Ludwig Schindler underlined the need for the
government to adopt a "comprehensive plan to prevent forest
fires".
Schindler said it was time the government revised the land
conversion program for a sustainable forest management system.
"Manage those forests resources sustainably because by doing
so, and not with the mentality of a mining company that takes out
whatever can, our resources will go a long way," he said.
"We are thinking of the future generations."
Head of the East Kalimantan Environmental Impact Management
Agency, Awang Faroek, confirmed the fires razed 155,000 hectares
of forest and caused more than Rp 2.6 trillion (US$220 million)
in material losses in the past three months.
He said the material losses did not include damages to the
province's rich forest biodiversity and long-term health costs to
people in the province.
The IFFM's expertise is likely to have the most durable impact
in forest management.
An eight-year-long technical cooperation project between the
German and Indonesian governments, it started in 1994 with the
aim of establishing a comprehensive fire management system.
The initial field study and work was conducted at Bukit
Soeharto, where villagers in Karya Baru were also trained to
prevent and fight forest fires in an elaborate community-based
fire management concept.
Lessons learned at this location can hopefully be replicated
all over the province where local fire centers will be
established.
These centers will form the core of a fire management
organization for the province.
IFFM has stressed that more than trained firefighters and
equipment are required for Indonesia to solve its fire problem.
The country needs an entire fire management system, such as a
method for detecting and reporting fires, dispatching and
organizing firefighters and equipment, planning fire management
budgets, an early warning system and spreading the prevention
message.
IFFM urged the government to develop fire management as an
integral part of the forestry curriculum, either at the
university level or in the field.
Also crucial is the involvement of the local population.
"Villagers and farmers who live near the forest and timber
industries are critical to fire management because they are both
an important cause of fires and a potential suppression
resource," the IFFM said.