Banjarbaru Police increase patrol to prevent forest and land fires

Banjarbaru Police Chief AKBP Kelana Jaya checks the completeness and equipment of handling forest and land fires. (ANTARA Photo/Firman)

Meet the community around vacant land that has often been burnt. Remind residents to equally protect the environment not to burn land,

Banjarbaru, S Kalimantan (ANTARA) - Banjarbaru City Police Chief Adj Sr Comr (AKBP) Kelana Jaya instructed his men to prioritize prevention efforts in anticipating forest and land fires (karhutla), one of the ways to increase patrols targeting areas prone to the emergence of hotspots.

"Meet the community around vacant land that has often been burnt. Remind residents to equally protect the environment not to burn land," Kelana emphasized here, Saturday (10/8).

According to him, preventing the occurrence of forest and land fire is certainly the most expected thing, rather than tackling land that is already burning.

Kelana stressed the importance of an approach by educating the public, such as groups of farmers and other parties, to realize that the act of clearing land by burning is not justified and there are legal sanctions for the perpetrators.

"It is possible that land which was accidentally burned due to residents throwing a cigarette into an empty field. Dry and hot conditions and wind, could have ignited the fire from the embers of the cigarette," he explained.

The Banjarbaru Police Station established the Command Post on Jalan Tegal Arum, Syamsudin Noor Village, Landasan Ulin Sub-district, Banjarbaru. Kelana leads the 2019 Intan Operation Contingency ceremony.

The police chief also checked the official car that was modified with water reservoirs and pumping machines to be used in an effort to extinguish fire if there was a hotspot.

Jalan Tegal Arum or often called the Guntung Damar, one of the areas prone to hotspots from peatlands that stretches quite wide.

The area is quite vital because if until the smoke haze emerges from the burning land, then it could interfere with the flight because the location is close to Syamsudin Noor Airport.

Banjarbaru City was one of 7 regions in South Kalimantan that declared the status of the forest and land fire preparedness, so it was prioritized for the placement of the Karhutla Task Force by the South Kalimantan Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) and the local city's BPBD.