"It happens that the weather is not conducive to put out the fire. The fog is not going down and the wind is strong," Juni Junaedi of the Kedu Utara forestry company, said here on Wednesday.
The fire was earlier spread to Mangli in Magelang but it was successfully extinguished, he said.
Some 20 hectares of forest area have been affected by the fire in Temanggung.
"The coverage can increase because the fire is still going on and the wind blows strongly," he said.
The forestry company has mobilized 16 personnel to put out the fire with the assistance of several local people living surrounding the forest area.
Almost every year during the dry season several provinces in Indonesia are hit by forest and plantation fires.
During August 2011 alone, some 11,000 hotspots were detected in Riau, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan Provinces, according to data of the environmental affairs ministry.
However, the forestry ministry`s data showed that during January-July 2011, the number of hotspots in Indonesia was 8,082.
The forestry ministry had earlier claimed that the number of Indonesia`s hotspots was much smaller than 24,767 hotspots in Myanmar, 12,577 hotspots in Cambodia, or 11,076 hotspots in Laos.
The data on the hotspots in ASEAN member countries was obtained from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)`s satellite monitoring.
In Indonesia, hotspots are mainly detected in six provinces prone to forest fires - Riau with 2,159 hotspots, West Kalimantan (809 hotspots), North Sumatera (600), Central Kalimantan (543), Jambi (455), South Kalimantan (259 hotspots).
Most of the hotspots or 77 percent occurred in agricultural and plantation areas, and 23 percent in forest area mainly ignited by illegal loggers, according to the forestry ministry.
(Uu.F001/HAJM)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
