REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BANDA ACEH -- A total of 87 hotspots, indicating forest and plantation fires, were detected in the provinces of Riau, South Sumatra, Bangka Belitung, and Lampung on Sumatra Island on Monday. Of the total 87 hotspots, 24 had developed into fire spots due to the forest fires.
"This morning, no hotspot was found in Aceh. However, 87 hotspots are detected in four provinces, and the largest number is in South Sumatra and Bangka Belitung," Zakaria Ahmad, official of the Blang Bintang meteorology office, stated here, Monday.
Meanwhile, the Terra and Aqua satellites detected a total of 801 hotspots, indicating forest and plantation fires, across Indonesia. The hotspots were of moderate- and high-risk categories, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), noted in a statement on Monday. In West Kalimantan Province, 272 hotspots were detected.
"Of the 272 hotspots, 149 are categorized as moderate and 123 as high risk," he stated.
The ongoing prolonged drought has caused water shortage in several regions, such as in the provinces of East Nusa Tenggara and West Java, and triggered fires in forest areas, particularly in West Kalimantan and Central Java.
Earlier, through legal enforcement and firm control, the Indonesian government had managed to reduce forest fires by 96.5 percent across the country during the 2015-2017 period.
Based on data obtained from NOAA's satellites, 21,929 hotspots were found across Indonesia in 2015, and the figure dropped to 3,915 in 2016, and again 2,257 in 2017, according to Raffles B. Panjaitan, director of forest and plantation fire control of the environmental affairs and forestry ministry.
The wild fires had razed a total of 2,611,411 hectares in 2015, and the figure decreased to 438,360 hectares in 2016 and again to 165,464 hectares in 2017.
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