Smoke from Indonesian forest fires may blow to S'pore, bringing haze
Fri, Aug 01, 2008
The Straits Times
By Salim Osman, Indonesia Correspondent
MORE forest fires are expected to occur this month in Indonesia, as the dry season reaches its peak with farmers and plantation workers carrying out land clearing through slash and burn method.
Weathermen and environmentalists on Friday warned that smoke from the fires may blow south west towards Singapore and Malaysia next week, bringing with it the haze.
The number of hotspots - which indicate areas where fires in forest and plantation land may be taking place - rose to 351 in the whole of Sumatra on Friday, according to the Meteorology and Geophysics agency (BMG).
'It is an increase from Thursday's figure of 297 hotspots,' said BMG analyst in Pekan Baru, Riau, Mr Blucher Doloksaribu.
He told The Straits Times that while no rain was predicted over the next three days, he expected the dry weather to continue over next week.
The wind direction in Sumatra is expected to blow from southeast and move towards northwest to Malaysia and Singapore, he said.
'If fires occur in forest and plantation land in Sumatra next week, you can expect the wind to blow the smoke towards Malaysia and Singapore,' he added.
Although the number of hotspots in Sumatra has risen slightly, the figure for Riau province alone showed a drop from 126 on Thursday to 111 on Friday.
Environmentalist Zulfahmi of Save the Riau Forest movement said that forest fires could be expected when farmers and plantation workers start clearing their land.
'So far there have been no reports of haze in Sumatra, probably because of the wind direction blowing away the smoke,' he told The Straits Times.
