Around 99 Percent of Sumatran Fires Deliberately Set

Jakarta (Antara)- Chief of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) Syamsur Maarif stated that around 99 percent of forest and plantation fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan were deliberately set. "There should be sanctions to stop recurrences. Slash-and-burn farming method is indeed existing in Sumatra and Kalimantan, but the most important is that it should be controlled," Syamsul Maarif noted in a statement here on Friday. As part of legal enforcement actions, the Indonesian police have named 23 suspects in Riau and 16 in Central Kalimantan for allegedly setting the fires deliberately. "There are several factors behind their decision to set fires in plantation and forest areas, such as economic, social and cultural factors," he explained. Dry rainy season in Sumatra and Kalimantan has triggered forest and plantation fires that produced haze. The NOAA 18 satellite on Thursday detected 17 hotspots in Aceh, 12 in East Kalimantan, 10 in West Kalimantan, four in North Sumatra and fort in North Kalimantan. During a ministerial-level coordinating meeting in the office of the coordinating minister for people's welfare on Thursday, the chief of the meteorological, climatology and geophysics agency (BMKG) announced that 70 percent of Indonesia's region will begin to have drought in April, May, and June 2014. This year's dry season is expected to be drier than that of last year. (*)