Sumatra fires raise haze threat

Sumatra fires raise haze threat

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Satellite images show a rise in forest fire "hot spots" in Indonesia's Sumatra island, raising the threat of smoke haze in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia, experts said on Monday.

They said the fires were close to logging tracks and plantations in Central Sumatra.

"Near the end of last week we observed quite a lot of fires...at the moment they are in Central Sumatra," said Lim Hock, director of the National University of Singapore's Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (CRISP).

"They are next to big networks of logging tracks and plantation areas," he said.

CRISP monitors the skies over Southeast Asia for Singapore's Ministry of Environment as part of a regional haze action plan drawn up by Southeast Asian countries last year to combat smog.

Fires in Central Sumatra earlier this month sent Singapore's Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) to its highest level in a year at 77.

The air quality has since improved. The index stood at 53 on Monday, still outside a range considered healthy, the Ministry of Environment said.

A PSI reading between zero and 50 is considered healthy. A 51- 100 range is "moderate", 101-200 "unhealthy", 201-300 "very unhealthy", 301-400 "hazardous" and 401-500 "very hazardous".

Lim said the fires, so far spotted only in Central Sumatra, covered a large area across the huge island which neighbors Singapore and Malaysia.

"They (the fires) are not as big as what we saw in '97, '98 but are building up quickly ... At the moment we can see a lot of smoke plumes rising here and there. Where we zoomed in we did see a lot of fires," he said.

A Meteorological Service of Singapore (MSS) spokesman told Reuters that hazy conditions can be expected over Singapore for the next few days.

"I don't expect it will develop into a widespread situation like 1997 but it will be dry for short periods and with the right wind conditions we expect a slightly hazy condition," said Wong Teo Suan deputy director of the MSS.

In 1997 and early 1998, much of Southeast Asia was covered with large swathes of choking smoke haze as a result of massive fires in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatra islands.

The fires destroyed five million hectares (12 million acres) of forest, agriculture and bush -- an area equivalent to Costa Rica -- and caused US$4.4 billion in damage.