Indonesia Steps Up Aerial Efforts to Contain Forest Fires

Indonesia has stepped up efforts to put out forest and land fires in six priority provinces, sending aircraft to conduct cloud-seeding operations as authorities try to bring rain and limit haze blanketing the region.

El Niño is intensifying, leading to a longer and more severe dry season this year for the country, raising the risk of drought, wildfires and deteriorating air pollution.

Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry data showed 107,465 hectares of land burned between January and June, a 110 per cent increase from the same period in 2023 when the last significant impact of El Niño was felt in the country.

“We are on alert because the weather conditions really make these fires possible to grow bigger,” Chief Security Minister Djamari Chaniago told reporters Monday.

“Indications pointed to the El Nino having reached its peak in Indonesia,” Djamari said.

The government has determined six priority provinces for fire control efforts, namely Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra on Sumatra Island, and West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan on Borneo.

There were also reports of fires in other parts of the country, including Java, Papua and Nusa Tenggara.

The city’s mayor said that in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan, classes for all students have been shifted online due to deteriorating air quality caused by haze.

Authorities had deployed 43 helicopters and 15 fixed-wing aircraft to fight the fires, Djamari said.

Cloud seeding operations have also been carried out using salt flares to induce rain. However, he noted that efforts had been hampered by a shortage of rain-bearing clouds.

So we watch the weather very closely, even its smallest changes. “When there’s a good chance of getting rain clouds, we do cloud-seeding operations right away,” he said.

And the haze’s effects have crossed Indonesia’s borders. Air quality readings of 11 locations in Malaysia’s Sarawak State, which shares Borneo island with Indonesia, were unhealthy on Tuesday, the country’s environmental department said.

The state education department of Sarawak told schools to stop outdoor activities when the temperature was too high or the air quality index was above 100.

A fire at Mount Bromo National Park in East Java Province that destroyed at least 899 hectares on Java Island had been mostly put out, local disaster mitigation agency Chief Gatot Soebroto said.

Some 150 personnel were still deployed on Tuesday to tackle the remaining blaze, which was still burning across at least two hectares.