At Least 8 Million Hectares Of Land In Indonesia Burned So Far in 2006

[hatrack]

At least eight million hectares across Indonesia have been damaged by forest fires in the last month, officials said Friday as dozens of uncontrolled blazes continued on Borneo island.

A forestry ministry official admitted that forest and ground fires had destroyed millions of hectares of land in Indonesia last month, with a satellite system detecting 52,599 hotspots during August.

EDIT

Separately in Palangkaraya, the provincial capital of Central Kalimantan on Indonesian Borneo, around 60 firefighters were struggling to put out blazes, said an official. "The fires are vast, every day they spread further," said Ahmad Yani, a coordinator of the teams tackling the infernos.

Elsewhere dozens of firefighters were trying to extinguish fires in several districts, including ground fires in the Pulang Pisau area which Yani said had been burning since last week ago. Haze from the fires in Central Kalimantan reduced visibility to less than 500 metres, threatening to interrupt air traffic, said an official from the Palangkaraya's meteorological agency. "Now visibility is down to 500 metres, planes can still take off but we will have to see later," said the official called Hidayat.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2006/060908103155.odk5imsy.html