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PARTS of Riau province in Sumatra were blanketed with choking smoke from land-clearing fires on Saturday, and officials here warned that the haze could be headed for Singapore.
In some parts of the province, visibility was reduced to just 20m on Saturday. Thousands of face masks were distributed to residents in Dumai and Pekanbaru, the provincial capital.
Riau governor Rusli Zainal said on Saturday that the fires, which started four days ago, were raging furiously in areas near Dumai town and Bengkalis.
'Our fire-fighting teams just can't cope with the kind of equipment they have,' he told the Riau Pos daily.
Raging fires in the village of Pelintung near Dumai town forced villagers on Saturday to flee for safety.
Officials and environmentalists here were agreed that unless the fires were put out soon by human efforts or heavy rain, the haze could spread farther, even to Malaysia and Singapore.
Forestry Ministry spokesman Fauzi Masyhud told The Sunday Times that the fires and the resulting smoke were the result of people taking advantage of the early onset of the dry season to clear their land.
'This is not yet the dry season which usually occurs in July,' he said.
Environmentalist Rully Syumanda of Walhi Indonesia estimated that some 2,000 hectares - almost the size of 2,000 football fields - were up in smoke in Riau province.
He blamed the fires on farmers and plantation owners who go for the easy method of land-clearing by setting fire to vegetation.
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