Indonesia mulls taking foreign assistance to stop forest fire

An Indonesian minister said on Wednesday that government is considering possibilities to receive foreign assistance to help the efforts to stop the forest fire in Sumatra and Kalimantan as the scale and level of difficulties in dealing with the problem requires more capable instruments.

"It seems like there is a need to receive supports either from Singapore, Russia, Austria or other nations," Indonesia's Forestry and Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said here, citing countries that have already offered to help.

She added that Indonesia needs fire extinguishers capable of spraying water at higher pressure and larger volume.

According to Siti, the other countries that offered their assistance include Australia, China and Japan.

Siti said the most effective ways of extinguishing the fire were by water bombing and artificial rain.

Indonesia has previously rejected Singapore's offer to assist while engaging 20 helicopters and planes to carry out water bombing and artificial rain operations in six provinces affected by forest fire.

Singapore had previously offered to send C-130 aircraft for cloud seeding and Chinook helicopters with large water buckets to douse the fires in Indonesia.

The ensuing El Nino makes Indonesia's efforts even more difficult as the drier condition on the field leaves forests more vulnerable to fire.

Indonesia is facing pressure from Singapore and Malaysia over the need to quell the forest fire immediately as haze as a result of the fire has significantly worsened air quality in the two neighboring countries. Endi