JAKARTA, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia has recorded a total of 857,000 hectares of areas torched by fire from January to September this year, making it the highest forest fire figure from the previous ones in 2016 and 2018, Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) Spokesperson Agus Wibowo said on Tuesday.
Agus said the fire was not only torching peatland in forests, but also mineral lands in opened lawns across the country.
Cited the data issued by Indonesia Forestry and Environmental Ministry, Agus said Central Kalimantan and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) provinces have the largest peatland and mineral lands torched by the fire respectively.
Apart from that, Agus said that hotspots were still detected in six provinces intensively monitored by BNPB at present for their higher occurrence of forest fire.
Referring to the satellite images in the last 24 hours, Agus said South Sumatra province has the most hotspots at 153, followed by 44 in Central Kalimantan, 23 in South Kalimantan, 5 in West Kalimantan and 2 in Jambi.
Helicopters to carry out water bombing operation are still besieged in the six most-monitored provinces with some 392 million liters of water have been allocated for the operation, he added.
Apart from that, BNPB will team up with national technology application agency of BPPT and the air forces to continue artificial rain operation.
Agus added that the existence hotspots have apparently deteriorated air quality in the affected provinces.
"With hotspots detected in those provinces, risk of deteriorating air pollution in those provinces is imminent. We have measured the air quality in those provinces with PM 2.5 mechanism," Agus said here.
South Sumatra province has the most unhealthy air quality level, followed by unhealthy levels in Jambi, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan. Adequate air quality level was seen in Riau, while good air quality, he added.
Agus previously said that smoke emitted from forest fire in those six provinces have made over 919,000 residents suffered from respiratory problems until September.
