Officials say forest fires increasing

Officials say forest fires increasing

By Tomi Soetjipto

JAKARTA (Reuters): Forest fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are increasing, but officials on Monday played down the possibility of a repeat of Southeast Asia's smog crisis of 1997.

They said they had no immediate strategy to put out the fires, which sent thick smog over some parts of neighboring Malaysia over the weekend.

That smog started to disperse on Monday, although health concerns remained.

Plantation firms in northern Riau province, near the border with North Sumatra and not far from Singapore and Malaysia, were to blame for the fresh outbreaks, the officials added.

"As of today we detected 162 fires spots in Riau province alone... The fires have been increasing since July 7," said Irfan Destianto Imanda of the Forest Fire Prevention and Control Project in South Sumatra province.

"In 1997, the fires were quite widespread in Sumatra but this time around it is mainly centered on one area. I don't think this is going to grow any bigger but the level of intensity in the hot spot areas is similar to that in '97," Imanda said.

Raging fires in 1997 on Sumatra and the Indonesian province of Kalimantan on Borneo island triggered thick smog that blanketed Singapore and parts of Malaysia for weeks. The pollution reached Thailand and the Philippines.

The smog led to a range of health problems and damaged the tourist industry across the region.

Ardhi Yusuf, an official at the Sumatra Environmental Supervising Body from the Riau capital Pekanbaru, said pollution levels on the border between Riau and North Sumatra had passed 400 on Indonesia's Air Pollutant Standard Index. Visibility was down to between 300 and 500 meters, he said.

A reading higher than 300 on the index is regarded as hazardous. Healthy air has a rate below 50.

Yusuf said pollution levels in Pekanbaru, 935 km northwest of Jakarta, were between 100-200 on the index.

"We went to some plantation areas near the border last week and found one palm plantation which had cleared an area of 1,000 hectares," Yusuf said.

Yusuf said problems had been compounded by some locals who were engaged in traditional slash and burn farming.

"Slash and burn means they set fires to the trees instead of cutting the trees first, so in a way it is more dangerous because it could spread quickly," Yusuf said.

He conceded the government had no clear agenda to combat the blazes. "Basically we just plan to go to visit the locals and plantation companies and hope they will stop," he said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are members, has proved largely powerless to deal with the smog issue for fear, observers say, of getting tough with regional heavyweight Jakarta.

Indonesia is one of the world's top producers of a variety of commodities, with Sumatra itself home to many rubber, coffee and palm oil plantations.