INDONESIA ACCEPTS FOREIGN ASSISTANCE TO EXTINGUISH FOREST FIRES By Fardah

   Jakarta, Oct 8, 2015 (Antara)- The inhabitants of Sumatra and Kalimantan, as well as the citizens of Malaysia and Singapore, who have been choked by the haze emanating from Indonesian forest and plantation fires, will hopefully get some respite soon as Indonesia has accepted offers by some countries to help put out the prolonged fires.

        The forest fires have resulted in millions of people, including those from Malaysia and Singapore, to become victims of the haze.  
   Besides Malaysia and Singapore, the Thai holiday resort island of Phuket has also been shrouded in the haze coming from Sumatra. As a result, Thailand's Foreign Minister invited Indonesia's ambassador for a meeting on Thursday to discuss the forest fires, the Bangkok Post reported.

        Thousands of personnel, including from the Indonesian military, have been deployed to extinguish the fires, but the efforts were not successful because the fires in peat land areas particularly, keep flaring up repeatedly.

        "Yesterday, we had asked for help, and Singapore was ready to assist. It (request for help) is still being processed (by) Russia, Malaysia, and Japan. We hope they can speed up the efforts as tackling peat land fires is different from regular forest fires," President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said in Jakarta on Thursday, prior to paying working visits to West Sumatra, Riau and Jambi, which have been badly hit by the wild fires over the past few months. 
   President Jokowi and First Lady Iriana, along with some ministers, departed from Halim Perdana Kusuma Air Force base and landed in Padang on Oct. 8. Initially, the President had planned to visit Jambi first, but the haze had hindered the presidential plane from landing at the Sultan Thaha Airport.

        The head of state will supervise efforts to extinguish the forest fires in the provinces, whose inhabitants have been reeling under the impact of the smog that has reached a hazardous level over the past few weeks.

        Singapore said it will send three aircraft on Thursday to help put out the wildfires, and assistance from Russia is also coming, President Jokowi revealed.

        "The aircraft have a water carrying capacity of 12 to 15 tons and not just two to three tons," he remarked.

        The Government of Singapore had received a formal note from Indonesia, stating that Indonesia "welcome(s) the cooperation offered by Singapore to suppress large-scale forest fires in Indonesia," Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said in a statement on Thursday.

        Channel News Asia (CNA) reported that the note came a day after Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said he had a good discussion with his Indonesian counterpart on the fires.   
   "To elaborate on our package, we have offered one C-130 aircraft for cloud seeding operations. However, such operations will ultimately depend on whether cloud conditions are conducive for cloud seeding," an MFA spokesman said.

        "One Chinook helicopter, with one 5,000 liter heli-bucket under-slung, will also be made available. This Chinook will be used for the aerial firefighting and water-bombing efforts. The heli-bucket will be operated by a Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) from the SCDF."
   Singapore has also offered to share high resolution satellite pictures and hotspot coordinates with Indonesian authorities, CNA reported.

        According to the Indonesia's Foreign Ministry, five countries will assist Indonesia in tackling the land and forest fires in Sumatra and on Kalimantan Islands.

        "We think it is important to cooperate with countries that have the required resources to put out the fires and smoke. The five countries that will cooperate with us are Australia, China, Malaysia, Russia, and Singapore," the ministry's Spokesman, Arrmanatha Nasir remarked.

        Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno L.P. Marsudi has already spoken to the foreign ministers of Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia to discuss the cooperation.

        "Till this day, there are still about 110 hotspots, of which 11 are in Riau," he pointed out.

        "This partnership still needs to be discussed, as there will be assistance and commercial-based cooperation," he remarked.

        Spokesperson Arrmanatha explained that Indonesia had undertaken several efforts to tackle land and forest fires and to reduce the spread of smoke.

        "In essence, Indonesia has done its best to solve these problems. Not only through firefighting, but also by prosecuting those found guilty of setting the land and forest fires," he stressed.

        He further explained that in order to extinguish the fires, the Indonesian government had deployed 26 helicopters to conduct water bombing and a special aircraft to conduct weather modification to create artificial rain.

        "Data from the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry showed that 65 million liters of water had been poured over hotspots in five provinces, and 250 tons of salt has been used for weather modification," he noted.

        The Terra Aqua satellite of NASA had detected 1,820 hotspots of land and forest fires in the Sumatra and Kalimantan islands on October 4, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).

        Of the total, 1,563 were found in Sumatra and 257 in Kalimantan, the head of the BNPB's Information Data Center and Public Relations, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said.

        Some 1,340 of the 1,563 hotspots in Sumatra were found among others in South Sumatra, nine in Riau, 131 in Jambi, 22 in Bangka Belitung, 57 in Lampung and one in Riau Islands.

        He added that 51 of the 257 hotspots in Kalimantan were found in West Kalimantan, 108 in Central Kalimantan, 71 in South Kalimantan and 27 in East Kalimantan.

        The growing number of hotspots from land and forest fires has been fuelled by the El Nino-induced prolonged drought, which has led to the haze disaster.

        The Indonesian Police has named 240 suspects in forest and plantation fire cases in Sumatra and Kalimantan regions so far.

        "We have named 240 suspects, including corporations and individuals. We have also detained a businessman involved in the palm oil sector, who was the alleged mastermind behind forest fires in Indonesia," Indonesian Police Chief General Badrodin Haiti said on Oct. 6, 2015.   ***2***

(f001/INE)

 08-10-2015 21:53:14