Weather Modification to Extinguish Mount Bromo Fire Not Yet Possible, Ministry Explains Why

The Ministry of Forestry has revealed that Weather Modification Operations (OMC) to help extinguish forest and land fires in the Mount Bromo area of the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park (TNBTS), East Java, cannot yet be carried out. Director General of Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation at the Ministry of Forestry, Satyawan Pudyatmoko, stated that the obstacle is due to the lack of convective clouds, which are a prerequisite for the operation, in the Bromo region.

OMC is an intervention to increase the potential for rain by seeding clouds with sodium chloride (NaCl) using specialised aircraft, based on scientific data and involving a team of experts from the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), and the Indonesian Air Force. “We have actually considered weather modification, but according to the BMKG, it will not be possible for at least the next 10 days because the convective clouds needed for OMC have not yet formed,” said Satyawan Pudyatmoko.

He explained that the fire in the TNBTS area has been ongoing for several days, since Tuesday (4/8), and the hotspots have not yet been fully extinguished. The Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park Agency, a technical unit under the Ministry of Forestry in East Java, recorded that the affected area has now reached 520 hectares, with data collection still underway.

According to the latest field observations, the difficulty of accessing the fire spots by land has forced authorities to focus on a combination of ground troop deployment and water bombing. “Our approach is a combination of ground forces and water bombing. Just yesterday, there were 30 water bombing runs. However, the difficult terrain, strong winds, and very low humidity make firefighting efforts challenging,” he said.