Fires ravage 885 hectares of forest on Meranti Islands
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Fires sweeping across Meranti Islands continued as of Monday, razing at least 885 hectares of forest and plantation areas.
Meranti Islands’ Forestry Agency chief Ma’mun Murod said the two districts of Rangsang and East Tebingtinggi were badly affected but Kepau Baru subdistrict in East Tebingtinggi was the worst hit. In Kepau Baru 750 hectares of sago plantations had been burned.
“Of that, 550 hectares belonged to the people. The rest belonged to PT Nasional Sago Prima [NSP],” Ma’mun said.
He added that the provisory financial loss caused by the fire in East Tebingtinggi alone was predicted to have cost US$ 2.7 million. He said every hectare of sago field lost caused 45 million rupiah in financial loss.
In Rangsang, he added, there were seven hot spots across the five sub-districts of Gayung Kiri, Citra Damai, Tanjung Kedabu, Gemala Sari and Wonosari.
The hundreds of firefighters deployed had not yet extinguished the flames. Burning peat lands were especially difficult to extinguish.
“We have yet to calculate the financial loss in Rangsang district because most of the land was forest,” Ma’mun said.
He added that the cause of the fires had not yet been confirmed. Some say it was a carelessly discarded cigarette butt, others say it was a fire started on the outskirts of a forest.
