Brunei Experts On Mission To Assess Forest Fires In Borneo
By Yusrin Junaidi

Bandar Seri Begawan - Two Brunei fire experts led by Senior Supt Lim Hock Guan from the National Disaster Management Centre (NMDC), Ministry of Home Affairs, left yesterday for Palembang, Jakarta to assess the haze situation in Central Kalimantan and Sumatra for the next seven days.

The former Fire and Rescue Commander of Belait District is accompanied by Senior Supt Hj Japar bin Tahir from the Fire and Rescue Department.

Fire experts from others Asean member countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore will also be deployed along with the Bruneians to the affected areas in Central Kalimantan and Sumatra to conduct joint rapid assessment and give recommendations with regards to operational procedures and other related matters.

Meanwhile, Southeast Asian ministers will meet soon to discuss ways to help Indonesia put out forest fires blanketing the region in smog, officials said on Tuesday, as people in fire-hit areas were left praying for rain.

Environment ministers from the I 0-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations could gather in Singapore as early as this week to try to help Indonesia put out the fires and prevent them recurring in future, a Malaysian government official said, Reuters reported.

Forest fires are burning mainly in Indonesia's part of Borneo Island and on Sumatra Island, also in Indonesia. Most are deliberately lit. Each dry season, forest is illegally torched to clear land for agriculture, blanketing Southeast Asia in smog.

But farmers are also using traditional slash-and-burn methods to clear or rejuvenate land. Indonesian Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban admitted in a statement on Monday the government was struggling to douse the fires and an environment ministry official said rain was now key.

"Indeed, the government is hoping for the rain while trying to conduct cloud seeding or water bombing. Rain is needed on a larger scale," said Hermono Sigit, adding sporadic showers had occurred in some parts of Sumatra.

Cloud-seeding could work in some areas but in other areas conditions were not right, officials said, while water bombing with helicopters is only able to dump limited volumes of water.

Many of the hotspots are remote and roads heading to them are poor or non-existent, impeding efforts to extinguish the fire.

In areas where rain had occurred like the huge but rural Pelalawan region in Sumatra's Riau province, residents said visibility had improved since the weekend.

But in Singapore, doctors noted an increase in health problems.

Malaysia's largest opposition party, the Democratic Action Party, handed a protest note to the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday urging Jakarta to stop the burning.

At the beginning the dry season, Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) had issued Alert Level I to inform all Asean member countries to be cautious on the arrival of the dry season. The alert level was upgraded to Level 2 on September 28 as the situation deteriorated. In view of the current fire-and-haze situation and following the operational procedures of the Panel of Asean Experts on Fire-and-Haze Assessment and Coordination, Alert Level 3 has been activated.

PSI readings obtained by NDMC from the Department of Environment, Recreation & Park for the first week of October were below 100. No forest fires have been reported here until now. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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