Banjarmasin, S Kalimatan (ANTARA) - South Kalimantan Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) reported 4,345 hotspot have been detected from forest and peatland fires (karhutla) that occurred from June to August 2023.
Based on data from the Center for Disaster Management Control Operation (Pusdalops PB) of the agency fires had covered an area of 1,170.89 hectares with thousands of hotspots scattered in 13 districts and cities in the province until Sunday afternoon (August 6, 2023).
“Banjarbaru City still dominates forest and land fire accidents ,” said Head of South Kalimantan BPBD Raden Suria Fadliansyah when confirmed in Banjarmasin, Sunday night.
Even though there were not so lot hotspots detected in the city, only 164, but peatland and forest fires occurred almost every day.
“The City of Banjarmasin has the least number of karhutla accidents,” he said.
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Suria mentioned that the area of forest and land fires in Banjarbaru City reached 464.94 hectares, then the second largest area was Tanah Laut Regency 279.13 hectares followed by Banjar District with an area of 223.8 hectares.
Based on ANTARA monitoring, the three adjacent areas are karhutla-vulnerable areas with a total coverage of 967.87 hectares and the number of hot sources of about 1,605 hotspots.
Meanwhile, based on the recorded data as many as 401 peatland fires had occurred which covered an area of 1,082.19 hectares and 21 forest fires with an area of 88.7 hectares.
Previously, Suria said that South Kalimantan BPBD had received six helicopters as an assistance from the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) to deal with karhutla, especially in areas that are difficult to reach by the ground task force.
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