Forest Fires Spread Haze Over Borneo
Wildfires have charred 34,600 acres of drought-affected forest on the Indonesian section of Borneo island, covering parts with thick smoke Monday.
The haze forced Samarinda’s Temindung airport, 745 miles northeast of Jakarta, to close for about seven hours Monday because of poor visibility.
The airport has been closed 16 times since fires were first reported in the area in January.
East Kalimantan provincial Gov. H.M. Ardans blamed the fires mainly on logging and plantation operators wanting to clear land cheaply, the official Antara news agency reported.
In 1997, Indonesian wildfires, most of them set deliberately by people clearing land, spread a thick haze over parts of Southeast Asia, causing respiratory illness, disrupting air travel and hurting tourism. Seasonal rains doused most of the fires late last year.
In an attempt to deal with future haze problems, weather authorities in southeast Asia will soon be linked by computer so they can share satellite images, wind charts and data on visibility and air quality.
The coordination plan is being carried out by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore.
The Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat said in a statement here Monday that the new lines of communication will be in place within a month.