Haze from forest fires covers Jakarta on September 20 (Photo: AFP/VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The area of land destroyed by forestfires in Indonesia in the first nine months of 2019 has exceeded that duringall of 2018, statistics show.
Raffles Panjaitan, forest fire management actingdirector at the Forestry and Environment Ministry of Indonesia, said on October21 that by the end of September, a total of 857,756ha of land had been burned,higher than the 529,267ha in 2018.
The area burned surged from over 328,000ha thatwas devastated by forest fires between January and August, he said, adding thatthe size of such area is forecast to continue expanding this month, althoughnot as drastic as last month’s.
Fire fighting still continues to preventescalation, the official noted.
Indonesia has spent months to battle forestfires in Sumatra and Borneo that have caused thick haze which drifted overneighbouring Malaysia and Singapore.
Rain has started falling in some areas onSumatra which offered some respite, but the rainy season is not expected tofully arrive until around mid-November.
Forest and peat fires, typically taking place inSumatra and Borneo, are often linked to slash-and-burn practices to clear areasfor palm cultivation./.
VNA
