Prabowo's Warning: Forest Fires Must Not Reach the IKN Core Zone

President Prabowo Subianto has warned that forest and land fires (Karhutla) in Kalimantan must not spread to the national capital city (IKN) development project area.

Prabowo issued the statement after receiving a report from the Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), Suharyanto, during a limited virtual meeting held on Monday (7/9).

“One thing that must also be watched is the fire near the IKN; we must pay attention to it and perhaps deploy more assets, to ensure the fire does not reach the core zone,” Prabowo said.

Earlier, Suharyanto noted that forest and land fires were still affecting six priority provinces: Riau, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Sumatra, and Jambi.

West Kalimantan has recorded the largest burned area. BNPB and relevant parties continue extinguishing efforts in the six priority provinces.

Meanwhile, fires outside the priority category have also occurred in the IKN area in East Kalimantan.

Suharyanto said 458 hectares of land in the IKN had burned and were still being extinguished.

The BNPB head said his team had deployed ground and air task forces to put out the fires, stressing that the ground task force was the mainstay, as the air task force was often hampered by weather.

He also explained that many fires in the six priority provinces had already been extinguished, but smoke continued to emerge from peatland, causing flames to keep reappearing.