Pekanbaru, Riau, (Antarariau.com) - Vice President Boediono chaired a coordinating meeting to discuss forest and plantation fires in Riau Province.
"Yesterday, the coordinating meeting was held by involving all stakeholders," spokesman of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) Agus Wibowo stated here on Friday.
The meeting was attended by Deputy Governor of Riau Arsyadjuliandi Rachman, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan, Chairman of BNPB Syamsul Maarif, Head of the REDD Management Agency Heru Prasetyo, Head of the Presidential Working Unit for Development Monitoring and Supervision (UKP4) Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, Attorney General Basrief Arief, and Deputy Police Chief Commissioner General Badrodin Haiti, among several others.
Also present in the meeting were Deputy Minister of Agriculture Rusman Heriawan, Chief of the Riau Police Brigadier General Condro Kirono, Deputy Governor of Riau Province, and representatives from South Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Kalimantan.
In a statement, Deputy Governor of Riau Arsyadjuliandi Rachman expressed optimism that the forest fire disaster mitigation efforts will be better this year.
"It is because of tight and good coordination between the regional and central government," he pointed out.
The Riau provincial administration has set up a task force to anticipate and tackle forest fires.
"The task force is routinely monitoring Riau s districts and cities. It also carries out a public awareness campaign to prevent forest fires," he said.
The personnel of the task force comprise 1,096 military personnel, 125 personnel from the Manggala Agni forest fire brigade, 100 members of the Riau disaster mitigation agency s rapid reaction unit (TRC BPBD), 280 officers of the Riau fire brigade, 100 civilian security guards, and 50 members of the university student regiment.
The BNPB had deployed three helicopters to carry out water bombing in order to extinguish the forest and plantation forest fires in Riau.
