REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PEKANBARU -- The number of hotspots of forest and plantation fires in the Riau Province have significantly increased from 81 reported on Wednesday, to 278 noted on Thursday morning.
The Terra and Aqua satellite detected the hotspots on Thursday, at 5 a.m. local time, Ahmad Agus Widodo, an analyst from the Pekanbaru meteorological, climatology and geophysics agency (BMG) stated here on Thursday.
The 278 hotspots are spread across 11 districts and cities, with the largest number reported in the Bengkalis district.
Bengkalis had 60 hotspots, 59 were in Siak, 57 in Pelalawan, 41 in Meranti, 13 in Indragiri Hilir, 17 were in Rokan Hilir, 15 in Dumai, 7 each in Indragiri Hulu and Kampar, and one respectively in Kuantan Singingi and Rokan Hulu.
The lack of rainfall had increased the number of hotspots in the Riau Province, he explained.
The fires produced haze that enveloped several cities and districts, particularly Dumai City and Siak, where the air quality index has dropped to a precarious level.
The Riau provincial administration has come up with steps for haze disaster response after holding a coordinating meeting with all the related institutions.
"The fires in Riau must be soon tackled, so that what had happened in 2013 is not repeated," emphasized Riau Governor Djohermansyah Djohan.
Last year, the Indonesian government declared a state of emergency in the Riau province on June 21, after heavy smog blanketed parts of the Sumatra Island, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Several flights were postponed or cancelled and the Sultan Syarif Kasim (SSK) II Airport in Pekanbaru, Riau Island, was temporarily shut down due to the haze on June 20, 2013.
Singapore urged its citizens to stay indoors amid unprecedented levels of air pollution, while Malaysia closed 200 schools and banned open-air burning in some areas last year.
As the haze coming from forest, plantation, and peatland fires had affected lives of thousands of people in Sumatra as well as in Malaysia and Singapore, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had instructed all-out measures to fight the blazes raging across Sumatra.
The Indonesian head of state on June 20, 2013, ordered all the relevant ministries and institutions to put out the fires within a month's period.
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