Officials Struggle to Put out Fire on 7-Hectare Peatland in Aceh

TheIndonesia.co - The disaster mitigation office (BPBD) continues to struggle to put out fire on a 7-hectare peatland in Pulo Kruet village, Nagan Raya regency, Aceh province.

As of the evening of Thursday, May 26, BPBD in the regency revealed that the effort and work to extinguish the fire was still going to prevent the fire from spreading even further.

“Currently, the land that has caught fire is up to seven hectares,” the office’s secretary Nazaruddin said on Thursday, as reported by Antara.

He also revealed that BPBD is working with the police, military, and forest rangers – as well as the public – in a joint effort to put an end to the disaster.

According to the BPBD official, water availability continues to be the biggest obstacle faced by crew that has been working to extinguish the fire.

“We’re forced to deploy water pumps to the fire location since [the route] to the spot is not accessible for the firefighting fleet,” Nazaruddin added.

On Wednesday, he also revealed that the cause of fire was still unknown.

As Indonesia enters the dry season, forest and land fires have been expected to occur in a number of regions in Indonesia.

Earlier this month, the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency, or BMKG, has issued early warning of forest and land fires in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) as hotspots were detected in the province during the dry season.

Forest and peatland fires have also been frequently happening in provinces in Sumatra, including Aceh.