Roundup: Indonesia's forest fire worsens amid El Nino

Indonesia is facing uphill to deal with forest fire that massively engulfing forest areas in at least eight provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan as the El Nino weather continues to ensue across the country, risking the health of millions of people.

The El Nino that prolongs dry season in Indonesia makes fire fighters and other elements involved in the efforts to extinguish fire in those provinces have to work harder as the arid condition incited by the El Nino eases the fire to raze more vegetation and peatland in the forest that eventually emits more haze that run uncontrollable everywhere.

The thick haze that looming Riau, the province suffered the most from the forest fire, has made dozens of thousands people suffered from acute respiratory problem. Fatalities caused by the haze were reportedly happened in several provinces.

Local media reported that a man recently died from his asthma due to the haze in Riau capital of Pakanbaru. While in Jambi and Central Kalimantan, two babies died after exposed to the haze in the past few days.

The thick haze looming in urban areas has forced authorities in several provinces to suspend education process in schools.

The thickening haze had also significantly disrupts the flights serving in cities affected by the forest fire.

In Pakanbaru alone more than 60 flights were cancelled in the last few days due to the haze that exacerbates pilots' visibility to navigate the planes.

Responding to the latest development and impacts from the El Nino that worsening the current forest fire in the nation, Willem Rampangilei, head of Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said the agency could not estimate on how long would the forest fire can be completely extinguished.

As the El Nino continues, he said new hotspots have emerged in East Kalimantan and Ogan Komering Ilir in South Sumatra province.

"Due to the latent of fire, the ongoing weather, it all would be unpredictable," Willem said on Tuesday, adding that all of the processes to carry out measures in the areas affected by forest fire were conducted scientifically, with the help of satellite images.

As of Sunday, about 1,820 hotspots were detected in Sumatra and Kalimantan by Terra Aqua satellite controlled by the United States aerospace agency of NASA.

He said the agency would put its utmost to overcome the forest fire that has been going on since May. He added that the BNPB has coordinated with police, the military, forestry and environment ministry and volunteers to address this issue.

He denied allegations that the Indonesian government was hardly able to deal with the current forest fire, saying such an assumption was probably related to the scale of the forest fire as it now covered eight provinces at the same time, rather than one in Riau last year.

Even though national catastrophic disaster has yet to be imposed in the current forest fire, Willem said the government has engaged all of its national resources to address the problem.

He said BNPB has engaged 17 water bombing helicopters to pour water in the affected areas. It also coordinated with the military to create artificial rain.

Indonesian Police Chief General Badrodin Haiti said police has declared suspects against 240 individuals and firms identified of committed in the current forest fire.

"We also detained a businessman working in palm oil plantation business. He was alleged as a mastermind of the current forest fire," Badrodin said in Sukabumi, West Java on Tuesday.

The government has previously warned to jail those involved the forest fire and to revoke the business licenses of plantation firms proved of committed in the forest fire.

Torching fire to the trees and vegetation in the forest has been practiced by those intending to open forest areas for plantations for years, led to massive forest fire that emitted haze that badly affecting people around the forest.

Due to the ensuing forest fire, Indonesia faces pressures from Singapore and Malaysia whose territories were affected by haze from Indonesia forest fire. The two neighboring countries have asked Indonesia to immediately settle the forest fire problem.

Indonesia has rejected Singapore's assistance offer to help extinguish fire and haze problem resulted from forest fire in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The United States aerospace agency of NASA has warned that the current forest fire in Indonesia would likely worsen due to the El Nino, worse than the one in 1997. Indonesia saw severe forest fire at that time, covering 9.8 million hectares of affected areas, emitted around 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

According to NASA's Global Fire Emissions Database, the ongoing forest fire in Indonesia would significantly affect climate change globally as it has produced 600 million tons of emission, or equals to Germany's emission in one year. Endi