Villagers use banana leaves to put out forest fires
Umi Sriwahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Banjarmasin
Villagers in Kalimantan have their own way to cope with the fires that ravage their forests and farmland annually. In spite of the absence of fire extinguishers and fire trucks, they have a simple technique to stay at home surrounded by fire.
Parents and their children fighting flames simply by using banana leaves and a bucket of water is a common sight in villages along the trans-Kalimantan highway, particularly the section between Palang Pisau regency and Palangka Raya, the capital of Central Kalimantan.
Living in sparse settlements consisting of thatch huts along the road, local people -- mostly made up of families of five -- have a unique way of dealing with the forest and ground fires now plaguing the region.
As fire swiftly approaches their homes, instead of fleeing, children approach the flames and put them out by thrashing them with banana leaves and spraying water, which sometimes is taken from wells 20 meters to 50 meters away.
Interestingly, none of the villagers in near forested areas have been evacuated. Despite the presence of hot spots around their settlements, they choose to remain and keep guard against fire, with their palms as an effective cover against the suffocating smoke.
"There has been no evacuation because of the fires," confirmed Dehen Binti, executive secretary of South Kalimantan's regional coordinating board of the Indonesian Forest Society, who has been engaged in forestry affairs since 1963.
The inhabitants also have other ways of warding off fire. Most farmers along the sides of the 90-km route have cleaned the areas around their homes and made 50-centimeter deep ditches to prevent fires from encroaching.
Under normal conditions, it takes less than four hours to travel from Banjarmasin to Palangka Raya, but with forests ablaze it now takes 1.5 hours longer due to poor visibility caused by thick smoke.
The Palang Pisau-Palangka Raya section is the worst hit, with smoke blown in by strong winds blanketing the route. "The flames may reach the asphalt road so drivers must be cautious by slowing down, closing their car windows and using air-conditioning," said Misnawati, a Banjarmasin education official.
According to her, visibility during the daytime last week was no more than five meters. "When we went into the thick smoke, it looked as though we were passing black clouds in the sky," said Misnawati, who had just returned from Sampit.
While the 90-m section of road about 200 km from Banjarmasin is the darkest part of the highway, making the local people suffer most, Palangka Raya is also the most smoke-prone area compared with the other cities in Central or South Kalimantan. Geographically, it is in the middle of peatland, areas of dry grass and various plants that are vulnerable to fire.
People in Banger regency, South Kalimantan, also fight off the flames with banana leaves and water. The regency has almost 20 km of peatland that is routinely a victim to fire during the dry season. "We cut off lots of banana leaves when the flames are around us," said Banjar farmer Burhani.
Living with his family in the peat area, he told The Jakarta Post that he never used a mask no matter how dense the smoke got. "My hand or an old towel will do," he remarked, adding that the haze was a seasonal phenomenon and his family was no stranger to encroaching fires.
Dehen Binti, upon his return from Central Kalimantan, denied that forest fires were the source of the thick smoke disrupting traffic in the region. "No forest trees have been burned in this year's dry season there," he said.
The thousands of hot spots, according to him, are smoldering shrubs and bushes in Central Kalimantan's vast peatland.
"Their roots are now hot and consumed by fire so that a month of rain is needed to extinguish the embers thoroughly," explained Dehen Binti.
Based on the Forest Society's research, none of the pristine, primary, secondary and concessionaire forests have caught fire. "Some of them were actually devastated in the forest disaster of 1997," he confirmed.
Fires in some areas, particularly peatland, have become routine since the 1970s, when the government issued concessions, followed by illegal logging in the 1980s.
He admitted that it was difficult to find the parties responsible for such forest tragedies, for which humans had indeed been responsible.
Unsure of the presence of any pattern to solve the problem, he added that the maximum effort normally made was intensifying patrols in uninhabited areas to prevent fires from spreading, which required extra funds.