Government Appoints Senior Officials to Tackle Forest and Land Fires Across Indonesia

State Secretary Minister (Mensesneg) Prasetyo Hadi said the government has appointed several minister-level officials to handle forest and land fires (karhutla). Each official will focus on fire suppression in different regions.

“The central government has also appointed several minister-level officials to share regions. So there are those we have divided tasks to give attention to the West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan regions, and so on. We have arranged it that way,” Prasetyo said at JCC, Jakarta, Sunday (23/8/2026).

Prasetyo said the appointed officials are responsible for each assigned region. However, he stressed that this does not mean the officials are not responsible for fire hotspots in other regions.

“There is the Coordinating Minister, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs is there, the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture is also there. We have divided it all. The Army Chief of Staff is also responsible for one region,” he said.

“But do not interpret it as not being responsible for other regions. This is only dividing attention so that we can accelerate handling coordination,” he added.

Prasetyo said the government has no plans yet to form a special forest and land fire task force. So far, existing cross-sector coordination is considered good.

“I think not yet, because yesterday the results from the field showed cross-sector handling is already quite strong,” he said.

Previously, the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) recorded the extent of forest and land fires in Indonesia. Based on BNPB records, the total area of forest and land fires in Indonesia reached 72,798 hectares.

Based on data presented by BNPB Deputy for Prevention Abdul Muhari, Sunday (22/8/2026), the province with the largest forest and land fire area is West Kalimantan with 38,310 hectares. Personnel deployed to extinguish fires in West Kalimantan totalled 10,010.

The following is a list of forest and land fire areas in Indonesia:

Burned Land Area:

West Kalimantan: 38,310.89 ha

Riau: 16,249.24 ha

South Kalimantan: 8,019.62 ha

Central Kalimantan: 7,634.46 ha

South Sumatra: 1,926.23 ha

Jambi: ±658.29 ha

Total: ±72,798.73 ha

Ground Task Force:

West Kalimantan: 10,010

Central Kalimantan: 10,700

South Kalimantan: 1,408

Riau: 17,764

Jambi: 5,818

South Sumatra: 11,567

Total: 57,267