Widespread land and forest fires have raged in Indonesia for weeks, causing transboundary haze, a spike in respiratory conditions in the three countries and the shutting of schools in Malaysia, most recently in the southern state of Johor.
Jumhur on Tuesday said the small deployments of personnel may have limited impact, given that Indonesia has already deployed tens of thousands of responders. The same applies to assistance involving water-bombing aircraft, which must be evaluated based on operational needs and effectiveness, state news agency Antara reported him as saying.
Authorities has previously said ground operations have been more dominant because some areas are difficult to access by helicopter due to the extremely thick smoke.
FIRES TO BE EXTINGUISHED WITHIN A MONTH: MINISTER
Jumhur said Indonesia aims to extinguish all forest and land fires in less than a month, as joint teams continue firefighting operations across several affected areas.
Firefighting efforts have been focused on the Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra provinces, said the authorities.
“Based on discussions with the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), it should take a few weeks (to extinguish the fires). But since intensity is already starting to decline, hopefully it will take less (than a month),” Jumhur said.
