TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) reported that the trend of disaster events in Aceh has begun to shift from floods to land and forest fires. The agency’s head of disaster data, information, and communication center Abdul Muhari explained that although the province does not have vast peatlands, the region is prone to forest and land fires.

“Because the days without rain in Aceh are quite long, and the forests are in a dry position so that even a little splash, whether it's a cigarette butt or conditions influenced by human factors in general, can easily trigger forest and land fires,” Abdul said at the online disaster briefing event followed in Jakarta, Monday, June 19, 2023.

He elaborated that Aceh is not among the provinces prioritized for the mitigation of possible fires due to its low proportion of peatlands. The prioritized regions that have dominant peatlands include Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan.

“Even though North Kalimantan and East Kalimantan are also dominant on peatlands, rains fall in the past few days so [there is] no significant [possibility for] fire incidents,” Abdul added.

BNPB recorded that 1,759 disasters have occurred in Indonesia. Land and forest fires began to dominate the cases with 144 incidents, although the number is still generally dominated by floods, extreme weather, and landslides because of the La Nina period in early 2023.

“Since the beginning of May, the number of flood events has started to balance with land fires events,” BNPB's Abdul mentioned.

ANTARA

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