Pangkalpinang, Bangka Belitung (ANTARA) – The Bangka Belitung Islands Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) informed here Sunday that it continues to stay alert for the possible recurrence of wildfires in Bangka Barat District during the dry season.Despite the BPBD’s ability to handle the land fires in Bangka Barat, it must remain vigilant because the practices of slash-and-burn agriculture remain found in the district, the agency’s head, Mikron Antariksa, said. joint team of personnel from the BPBD and district/city governments had taken preventive measures by launching public awareness campaigns to make locals understand the dangers of slash-and-burn farming methods, he said. Besides the public awareness campaigns, the BPBD has also formed a wildfire task force, he said, adding that the slash-and-burn practices for preparing fields for planting can trigger uncontrollable wildfires. Therefore, he calls on locals, especially farmers, to stop practicing the slash-and-burn agriculture owing to the tremendous impact it may cause from the wildfires on the people at large. “Several hotspots have been detected. So, we hope locals will not practice the slash-and-burn agriculture to prevent the recurrence of greater land and forest fires,” he said. The agency has strengthened its wildfire-related prevention efforts after the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), and the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) issued early warnings on drought in June as a result of a hotter El-Nino climate pattern. “Over this past week, Bangka Barat District has experienced several land fires but they can immediately be extinguished. The affected farming areas do not exceed five hectares,” he said. NTARA has earlier reported that several parts of Indonesia have repeatedly experienced wildfires as a result of the slash-and-burn agricultural practices. The smog produced by land and forest fires poses a problem for neighboring countries because it potentially threatens people’s health and aviation activities. NTARA noted that in 2019, for instance, the forest fires had ravaged almost 16 thousand square kilometers of land, mostly on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan. In 2015, the fires blazed through 26 thousand kilometers of land, thereby resulting in one of the worst haze episodes in the country’s history. Related news: Satellites identify 23 hotspots of forest fires in North Sumatra

Source: Antara News Agency