Forest Fires Re-emerge in Mount Bromo Area
Probolinggo, East Java (ANTARA) - Forest and land fires (karhutla) have re-emerged in Mount Bromo, located within the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park (TNBTS) in Probolinggo Regency, East Java, prompting officials to struggle to extinguish the blaze.
“The fire occurred in the Penggol Block, Ngadisari Village, Sukapura District, from Thursday (10/9) afternoon and has not yet been successfully extinguished as of today,” said the Head of the Probolinggo Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), Oemar Sjarif, when contacted via mobile phone in Probolinggo on Friday.
According to him, joint personnel from TNBTS, BPBD, the TNI-Polri (Indonesian National Armed Forces and National Police), and volunteers are conducting maximum firefighting efforts using manual tools, though the terrain remains quite extreme.
To address this, he continued, the joint task force is creating firebreaks in unburnt areas to prevent the fire from spreading easily to other locations.
“Officers are performing containment, but strong winds are facilitating the spread of fire to dry cogon grass; the containment is being carried out to ensure the fire does not spread elsewhere,” he said.
Oemar explained that the handling of the forest fire in Mount Bromo also involves using water bombing helicopters belonging to the East Java BPBD, as the fire points are located on steep cliffs; however, operations are occasionally hindered by fog descending over the TNBTS area.
“We hope that the weather will clear so that firefighting can be optimised, both manually when the terrain is accessible to officers and via water bombing helicopters when the terrain is unreachable,” he added.
Field reports indicate that the forest fire in the Penggol hill area is expanding towards the Watangan valley, commonly known as Teletubbies Hill, forcing officers to work extra hard to prevent further spread.
The Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park Authority has also closed part of the Mount Bromo tourist access from the Jemplang entrance in Malang due to the fires since Thursday (10/9).