This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Indonesia is doing "everything" to fight huge forest fires, but dozens of planes and thousands of personnel are still struggling to contain them, a senior official said Monday. Firefighters have been battling blazes for weeks in Borneo and Sumatra that have blanketed parts of the country, as well as neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, in toxic haze.
The government has deployed 64 aircraft and 54,000 personnel to the islands since last month to try to put out the fires through water-bombing, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said. "From the air to the ground, all forces continue to move. Everything is being done to extinguish the fires, reduce the impact of the smoke, and, most importantly, protect the public from the threat of forest and land fires," he said.
"The vast size of the territory and the challenging conditions of peatlands pose serious difficulties in dealing with forest and land fires in various regions." Daniel Sinyor, a spokesman for the disaster mitigation agency in West Kalimantan, one of the most affected areas, said the varied depths of the fires burning inside local peat soils added to the difficulty. "Another challenge is the limited water sources available to this ground task force. In general, water sources decrease or even disappear in areas affected by the fires," he said.
Last week, Indigenous and civil society groups in West Kalimantan filed a class-action lawsuit against the government, including the president and the governor, for allegedly failing to prevent the fires. "This is not a new disaster. This is a disaster that occurs every year.
This recurring pattern proves our view that the defendants knew about the potential haze disaster and the risks of disaster from forest and land fires," the group's lawyer, Glorio Sanen, said in a statement at the time. Around 350 members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces arrived in West Kalimantan this month to assist with firefighting efforts. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has also expressed readiness to accept help from Malaysia.
Indonesia regularly battles wildfires during the dry season, which typically runs from July to October. But the blazes are more intense this year, coinciding with what is expected to be the strongest El Niño climate phenomenon since comparable records began four decades ago. Experts also blame climate change, decades of forest degradation and slash-and-burn land-clearing practices that have changed the naturally fire-resistant landscape.
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