Jakarta (Antara) – Land and forest fire in a number of regencies and city of Riau Province occurred since January continuously spread up to 1,136 hectares.

The head of Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) Riau, Edwar Sanger, said that the figure jumped over 150 hectares in less than the last 48 hours.

"Many hotspots are still detected in coastal areas of Riau, such as Bengkalis, Dumai, Rokan Hilir, until Indragiri Hilir," Edwar mentioned.

He explained that the largest fire was detected in Rupat Island of Bengkalis District with a total of burned land up to 817 hectares out of 1,136 hectares, followed by Rokan Hilir 132 hectares, Dumai 60 hectares, Indragiri Hilir 38 hectares, Siak 30 hectares, Kampar 15 hectares, Pekanbaru 21.01 hectares, and Meranti 20.4 hectares.

The central and regional government currently focuses on Rupat Island as the fire hit the region for the past two weeks, affected more than 200 hectares of land.

Other than Bengkalis, Edwar added, new hotspots are detected in Dumai City, Pekanbaru, Rokan Hilir Regency, and Indragiri Hilir Regency.

Efforts to extinguish the fire are still ongoing. Indonesian Air Force recently deployed Casa 212 aircraft to put out the land and forest fire by conducting water-bombing operations.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1179612/forest-fire-in-riau-reaches-1136-hectares