Forest fires threaten research center

Forest fires threaten research center

BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan (JP): The spreading forest fires
in the Kutai National Park near here are threatening a rare
species research center, an official said yesterday.

Warsito, the head of the national park located 180 kilometers
north of here, told The Jakarta Post that the fires had been
spreading fast despite the efforts of park rangers and the local
community to contain them.

"The fires are sporadic and to date we have only been able to
extinguish the one burning in the Malawan village," he said.

The rare species research center is located in Teluk Kaba
village near the 320 hectares of land and forest that had been
affected since Tuesday, Warsito said.

Warsito said that if the research center and its surroundings
were razed, the country would suffer a huge loss because many
rare animal and plant species could be found in the park.

Other villages in the 10,000-hectare forest national park that
are affected are Temputu, Teluk Dalam, Sangatta, and Teluk Pandan
where a total of 1,002 hectares of agricultural land and forest
have been destroyed.

The Kutai National Park is in the Kutai regency. The nearby
regency town is Bontang, one of the country's main gas producers.
Yesterday, the town was shrouded in smoke from the forest fires
in the park, Warsito said.

Flights to and from Bontang were disrupted yesterday. Land
transport from Bontang to Sangatta was also disrupted for two
hours because roads were littered with branches from the forest
fire, he added.

Warsito said fires had also affected the Bontang forest
reserve in the regency. However, he could not say how many
hectares had been affected.

"But one thing for sure is that fires are raging in an area
from Kilometer 10 to Kilometer 19 (along the Samarinda-Bontang
highway) with a three-kilometer depth from the highway," he said.

Warsito said joint efforts to fight fires with only several
fire brigade trucks were not proving that effective, adding that
other measures including digging ditches to stop the fires
spreading were already being taken.

The fires forced the Tanjungpura Military Command to move its
arsenal from Karang Joang village to Batu Ampar Wednesday.

Two separate fires were burning near Karang Joang village, 15
kilometers east of Balikpapan. Batu Ampar is 10 kilometers away
from Balikpapan, officials said.

According to satellite imaging from the U.S. National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday, 40 hot spots
were visible in the province.

The Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) here
suspects the recent fires, many of which are in plantations and
logging concessions are man-made. (42/aan)