"The status of emergency will last until June 30, 2018," acting district head of Mempawah, Gusti Ramlana, said.
Pontianak, W Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - The district administration of Mempawah of West Kalimantan has announced a situation of emergency against haze of smokes with a number of peat land areas having caught fire as dry season began to hit the region.

"The status of emergency will last until June 30, 2018," acting district head of Mempawah, Gusti Ramlana, said here on Sunday.

Gusti Ramlana said dots of bush fires had been monitored in a number of areas, adding the dry season began only early this month bur the impact is quite damaging.

"I hope the BPPD (local disaster mitigation agency) could give a map of areas vulnerable to forest and bush fires in Mempawah," he said.

Earlier, head of the Climatology station of the Memawah Meteorology and Geophysics agency (BMKG) Wandayantolis said rain is expected in a week in a number of upstream areas, but fires are feared to break out in number of other areas in West Kalimantan.

Meanwhile in Riau, the BPBD of the city of Dumai began to be busy in putting out fires ravaging 20 hectares of forests and farmlands in the area of Tanjung Penyembal.

The BPBD secretary Muhammad Ridho said the oil palm plantation had been on fire for several days as a result of extremely hot dry days and other causes not yet identified.

"A company takes part in seeking to put out the fires that sent thick smokes polluting the air," Ridho said on Thursday.

He said in January, BPBD succeeded in putting out fire in the sub-district of Sungai Sembilan Dumai, but fire began to break out again in the peat land.

Fire fighters are working hard to prevent the fire from spreading with equipment from a local company.

Forest and bush fires in Riau and West Kalimantan have been regular threat almost every year in this region sending thick smoke as far as Malaysia and Singapore.

The threat of drought triggered disaster came when a number of people have been reported killed in rain triggered landslides and floods in other parts of the country.

(U.SYS/A/H-ASG/F001)

Reporter: SYSTEM
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2018