Pekanbaru, Riau, (Antarariau.com) - The US-owned NOAA 18 satellite detected 118 hotspots across Sumatra Island, and most of them, or 68, were in Riau Province.
"In Riau Province, the largest number is in Dumai City with 21 hotspots," Said Saqlul Amri, the head of the Riau disaster mitigation office (BPBD) stated here on Thursday.
Hotspots were also detected in other districts and cities in Riau, such as 20 in Bengkalis, seven in Siak, six each in Rokan Hilir and Meranti, four in Pelalawan, two in Indragiri Hulu, and one each in Kuantan Sengingi and Rokan Hulu.
Haze triggered by hotspots shrouded a number of Riau"s cities. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently visited Riau Province to personally supervise the efforts to put out the fires razing forests and plantations.
The president, while meeting with fire fighters in the Riau Province on March 15, asked for an increase in fire fighting operations and urged fire fighters to extinguish the blazes within three weeks.
"The intensity of the operations must be increased and I hope they will finish in three weeks," he observed.
Meanwhile, the Riau haze mitigation task force had seized more than 450 tons of illegal wood during a crackdown on encroachers at the Giam Siak Kecil-Bukit Batu biosphere reserve in Riau province.
"The quantity continues to increase. So far, we have confiscated more than 450 tons of wood," commander of the task force Brig. Gen. Pribadi Agus Irianto stated on Wednesday.
Agus noted that the encroachment of the biosphere reserve came to light after the Indonesian Army deployed its special troops there shortly after the province was put under a haze emergency status on February 26.
"We found 39 illegal logging camps there," he pointed out.
He elaborated that part of the wood was seized as evidence and the rest was destroyed.
"We directly destroyed it," he explained.
In the crackdown, the task force also arrested dozens of suspected encroachers including Army Sergeant Major Sudigdo who acted as a financier in the illegal logging, Agus observed.
NOAA 18 Satellite Detecs 118 Hotspots Across Sumatra
