Over 1,000 Fires Race Through Sumatran, Borneo Forests

[hatrack]

JAKARTA (AP): More than 1,100 forest fires burning in central Indonesia have enveloped the region in a choking haze that's reduced air quality and delayed flights, officials said on Saturday. Bush fires have sent smoke billowing over large parts of Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan islands in recent months, and the cloud has also spread to neighboring Malaysia.

Meteorologist Ahmad Hidayat said satellite images show 610 fires burning in Central Kalimantan and 502 in South Kalimantan. "The hot spots are spreading," he said. Air quality in both countries has dropped. Malaysian officials have warned the problem - which has occurred sporadically since 1997 - is hurting regional tourism.

EDIT

In 1997-98, fires set mainly on oil palm plantations and farms in Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan provinces burned out of control for weeks, destroying 10 million hectares (25 million acres), and blanketing Singapore and parts of Malaysia andIndonesia with thick smoke. Economic losses from those fires topped US$9.3 billion and prompted a 2002 agreement among six of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members to fight fire pollution. Indonesia has yet to ratify the deal.

Indonesia's central government has expressed concern about the fires, but insisted it was up to the regional governments to handle the matter. The regional governments, in turn, complain they have no money to fight the fires."

EDIT/END

http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=34681