To Curb Pollution, Jakarta Fire Service Sprays Water While Cloud Seeding Remains Impossible

The Jakarta provincial government is still pursuing various methods to address the capital’s poor air quality. One of these involves spraying water using equipment from the Jakarta Fire and Rescue Service (Gulkarmat).

Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung said the measure is being taken while weather modification operations (OMC) cannot yet be carried out. According to him, current cloud growth conditions over Jakarta do not yet permit weather engineering.

“First, regarding the OMC or weather intervention, because up to today, frankly, there are no clouds,” Pramono said at Jakarta City Hall on Wednesday (19/8/2026).

Pramono said he has repeatedly asked the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) to carry out weather modification in order to reduce air pollution. However, the effort depends on natural conditions, particularly cloud growth in the skies over Jakarta.

“I have repeatedly ordered BPBD to immediately carry out weather modification, but because there are no clouds, it cannot rain,” he explained.

Amid these conditions, the Jakarta provincial government is taking other steps to help mitigate the impact of air quality. One of these is deploying firefighters to spray water.

“As was done by the fire department and others a few days ago, they used their equipment to spread water to reduce this,” Pramono said.

Pramono stressed that the government continues to attempt intervention in Jakarta’s air conditions. However, OMC cannot be carried out carelessly because it requires supportive weather conditions.

“Although, once again, this is certainly a given situation. And the Jakarta provincial government continues to try to modify the weather,” he said.

“So once again, weather modification can be done, and scientifically, as long as there are clouds, we will certainly carry it out immediately,” he added.