By Pratch Rujivanarom | 15 May 2019
ACADEMICS PUT down the authorities’ failure to control this year’s smog crisis in the North to an inappropriate “command-and-control approach”, adding that this problem will persist if the strategy is not revised.
Author: RFMRC SEA
Regional Fire Management Resource Center - Southeast Asia (RFMRC - SEA)
Forest fires: A burning issue for India
Meena Janardhan | 14 May 2019
The recent years have seen an alarming increase in forest fires across India. According to the Real Time Forest Alert System of the Forest Survey of India (FSI), the number of forest fires shot up to 14,107 from 4,225 between November 2018 and February 2019.
There’s more to Indonesian fires than drought
13 May 2019
The fires that devastated Indonesia in 2015 were chiefly linked to drought, topography and population, researchers have learned. Fires were most likely in flat, sparsely populated areas where there had been little rainfall. Although the connection to rainfall was no surprise, the other influences were unexpected.
Six-fold increase in forest fires as temperatures rise in many states
By Ishan Kukreti | 10 May 2019
The Forest Survey of India’s large forest fires monitoring programme data shows that there are 192 large, active fires in the country today
As many states face higher than normal maximum temperature, instances of large fires have increased more than six times across the country within this week.
Contract signed to lease helicopters to help fight forest fires
The forestry department has signed a contract with a private company for the lease of two helicopters to fight fires during the summer, the department announced on Friday.
Forest fire just fails to reach revered Guan Yin shrine in Mae Hong Son
By The Nation | 06 May 2019
The northern province of Mae Hong Son continued to see forest fires at the weekend, with one of them almost reaching a revered Guan Yin shrine in Muang district Sunday night, officials said.
A fire broke out in the forest behind the shrine on the Mae Hong Son bypass in Ban Mai Ngae village of Tambon Pang Moo at 7 pm, surprising and scaring villagers and motorists.
Forest Fires Accelerating Snowmelt Across Western US
Forest fires are causing snow to melt earlier in the season, a trend occurring across the western U.S. that may affect water supplies and trigger even more fires, according to a new study by a team of researchers at Portland State University (PSU) , the Desert Research Institute (DRI), and the University of Nevada, Reno.
South Sumatra forest fire task force identifies five fire-prone areas
Reporter: Eliswan Azly
Editor: Bambang Purwanto
Palembang (ANTARA) – The South Sumatra Forest and Land Fire Task Force have identified five fire-prone areas, the districts of Ogan Ilir, Ogan Komering Ilir, Musi Banyuasin, Muara Enim, and Banyuasin.
In Palembang on Thursday, commander of the South Sumatra Forest and Land Fire Task Force, Col. Arh Sonny Septiono, said that the five regions were their priorities because they had extensive peatlands.
Village-watch teams told to be vigilant as firefighters withdraw from Thailand’s northern province
By: Tossapol Boonpat | 02 May 2019
MAE HONG SON (The Nation) – Mae Hong Son governor Sirirat Chamupakarn has instructed village wildfire-watch teams to remain vigilant even though the province’s 61-day ban on outdoor fires ended on Tuesday and the level of fine dust particles in the air was below the safe limit for the first time in two months.
The Pollution Control Department (PCD) at 9 am yesterday put the 24-hour average of PM2.5 – airborne particulates 2.5 microns or less in diameter – at between 24 and 114 micrograms per cubic meter of air in nine northern provinces.