UN declares war on Indonesian forest fires

UN declares war on Indonesian forest fires

SINGAPORE (AP): Wartime resources are needed to put out the remaining Indonesian forest fires, but there is still a good chance of new fires and more haze over Southeast Asia, a senior United Nations official said yesterday.

"It is not merely firefighting anymore. It is a war against the fires," said Jorge Illueca, assistant executive director of the UN Environment Program.

The problem "requires large-scale wartime mobilization of resources such as personnel, equipment, logistics and telecommunications", Illueca told the Singapore Environment Council.

Although the end of the El Nino weather pattern should ease the 14-month drought, the normal dry season expected to last until October is sufficient to produce new, widespread fires, and resulting haze, he said.

During the dry season, local farmers and large plantation or timber companies clear land by setting vegetation on fire. These practices are chiefly blamed for the burning of 2 million hectares of rain forest, timber and grassland from July last year to this April.

The return of the same atmospheric patterns that enveloped cities in the region with smoke and ash last year can be expected, Illueca said.

If there are huge, uncontrolled fires, the wind patterns and inversion layers will be the same, and the health effects will compound respiratory and other ailments suffered last year.

Most of the major fires in East Kalimantan have been subdued, the Singapore Meteorological Service reported yesterday, based on satellite photograph data.

But Illueca said 30 fires were still burning out of control in inaccessible areas where the drought had depleted the water that the mostly ill-trained firefighters need. Efforts are aimed at limiting the blazes with firebreaks.

He and other international environmentalists have noted that the underground peat moss fires, which can spread rapidly and are the hardest to extinguish, are difficult to detect by satellite.

The United States, Canada and Australia have volunteered to send firefighting equipment and disaster managers when another major conflagration erupts this year, Illueca said.

But he said the political turmoil in Indonesia had caused many potential donors of money, manpower and equipment to hold back.

"The immediate future is bleak unless assistance is provided or sufficient rain falls to stop the fires."

Although some rain had fallen, it was unlikely to be extensive, long lasting or heavy enough to completely extinguish even the current blazes, much less new fires that normally erupt during the dry season.

"The rains will eventually come," Illueca said. "The fires will go out. But not before there is irreparable loss of biodiversity and valuable resources are destroyed."