Shortage of Personnel and Fleet Leaves Karangasem Firefighters Overwhelmed

Land fires occur almost every day in Karangasem, particularly in the Kubu and Abang districts. At times, as many as three separate fires occur within a single day in different locations. Consequently, the Karangasem Fire and Rescue Service (Damkartan) is struggling to manage these incidents with its limited number of personnel and vehicles.

“Currently, we have eight vehicles, consisting of four fire engines, three water tankers or supply trucks, and one rescue vehicle,” said the Head of the Karangasem Fire and Rescue Service, Artha Negara, on Friday (18/09/2026).

Artha expressed hope for additional personnel and equipment, as current levels are far from ideal. Based on the current fleet size, the service should ideally have 104 staff members; however, there are currently only 44 firefighters.

“In fact, at this time, the vehicles and personnel from the Selat Post have been reassigned to the Karangsokong Post to assist with land fire management in the Kubu district and surrounding areas,” Artha Negara added.

Given the vast area of Karangasem and the annual volume of fire responses and evacuations, it is ideal to have approximately 16 fire stations distributed across five sectors, accompanied by a significant increase in personnel.

“We hope that our aspirations for additional personnel and infrastructure can be realised gradually in the future. This would allow us to achieve a five-minute response time to incident locations once a report is received,” Artha Negara concluded.