Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan (ANTARA) - As many as 26 personnel of Forest and Land Fire (karhutla) Task Force have put out fire that broke out in the afternoon until last night in the area of Syamsudin Noor Airport in Syamsudin Noor Urban Village, Landasan Ulin Sub-district, Banjarbaru City.
They consisted of personnel from the South Kalimantan Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD), Karhutla Control Brigade (Brigdal), Manggala Agni, and National Police (Polri).
“The fire that is about 20 meters away from residents' settlement is completely extinguished,” said Field Coordinator of the Karhutla Task Force Ricky Ferdiyanto in Banjarbaru, Tuesday night.
He said Karhutla Task Force made efforts to put out the fire from 11.00 Wita and finished at 19.30 Wita (Central Indonesia Time Zone).
“Access road is quite difficult to get deeper inside, but the fire is no more closer to the settlements anymore,” he said.
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He expounded that even though there were quite a number of fire spots at the location, the situation was under control. However, because the condition was getting late in the night, officers decided to continue tomorrow.
Ricky acknowledged that the weather at night was actually favorable that it was cloudy and it was drizzling at the location of karhutla. The karhutla area is more than five hectares.
He hopes that heavy rain would fall so that if there was still hotspot in the field will be totally put out.
One of task force personnel Mohammad Rijali said that the extinguishing was stopped because of ineffective time due to night.
He said the conditions of the field were quite dangerous, so the team decided to continue tomorrow.
“The hotspots are safe, they are far from people houses,” said Rijali.
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