Jakarta – Fires raged in remote Indonesian forests Wednesday as regional environmental ministers met to try to avoid a repeat of last year's choking haze which engulfed much of SE Asia.
Estimates of the number of fires burning in East Kalimantan alone ranged between 300 and 1,000 while dozens more were said to be blazing in Riau, central Sumatra.
Repeated water-bombing by aircraft and the dropping of fire-retardant chemicals had limited the scale of the problem in some of the worse hit areas of East Kalimantan, a fire-fighting official in Samarinda said. "But more fires are starting and they are spreading." he added.
Fire had already razed 14,000 hectares of forest in East Kalimantan since Jnaury, he told Antara news agency.
Centre for International Forestry Research analyst Fred Stolle said the situation would worsen without rain because of a prolonged drought as a result of the El Nino weather pattern. However the recent rainfall had minimised the risk of fires spreading in Riau, he said.
The head of a German-funded fire-fighting programme earlier said fires in East Kalimantan were already too big and widespread to contain. "It is really bad, Ludwig Schindler said. "The area is completely covered with haze, There is no way to fly. Visibility is down to 300 metres."
"The fires have escalated to the extent that makes it impossible or economically impossible to put them out. The only thing that could help now is rain." The fires were raging in a 250-km band straddling the Makaram River in central East Kalimantan, he said.
World Wild Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Wednesday estimated the regional bill for damage caused by the Indonesian fires and the subsequent haze in 1997 was almost $1.5 billion.
Damage estimated at one billion dollars was sustained by Indonesia itself, 90 per cent of that figure in short-term health costs, the group said in a statement issued by its Jakarta office. Another 90 million dollars was lost in tourism and airport shutdowns.
Malaysia lost about 300 million dollars mainly in lost industrial production and a slump in tourism. Singapore lost 60 milllion dollars, mainly in tourism. It and Malaysia paid out a combinsed 12 million dollars for additional health care directly attributed to the choking smog which affected some 70 million people in the region, the statement said.
ASEAN enviroment ministers were holding a one-day meeting in Kuching Wednesday to discuss joint measures against the fires.