Northern Thailand is choking under a toxic shroud and it’s not getting any better. Air pollution across the upper North remains “at critical levels,” in many areas, including some of the main population centres. Authorities are monitoring almost 400 active hotspots in Chiang Mai alone yesterday.
Toxic haze has reached a dangerous tipping point in Chiang Mai province
The bushfires that have been raging near the tourist city of Chiang Mai over the past few days are heightening concerns for both residents and the authorities with the risk they pose of extreme air pollution, coming on top of worries about the coronavirus.
By: Saichol Srinuanchan | March 10, 2020
RATCHABURI: A sun bear cub has been saved from a forest fire in Chalerm Phrakiat Thai Prajan National Park in Ban Kha district, and is now in the care of a wildlife assistance centre.
Despite prohibitions on agricultural burning, wildfires continued ravaging forests across Thailand yesterday, especially in the North. Satellite images charting the progress of large fires yesterday morning showed the number of hotspots in the north had risen from 823 on Friday to 1,334. A total of 3,238 forest fires were recorded nationwide.
NAKHON RATCHASIMA: Forest fires which have been burning in parts of Khao Yai National Park since early this month are reported to have been finally put out.
The bushfires were first reported on Jan 5 by national park officials in Khao Siad-a, Khao Ang Hin and Khao Nok Yung forest reserves near Ban Nong Yang in tambon Phayayen of Pak Chong district. They were believed to have started about five days previously.
Crews from several stations in the national park were mobilised to combat the blazes.
The last flames were extinguished about noon on Monday, according to a local media report.
An investigation is underway into the cause of the fires.
Link: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1835439/khao-yai-bushfires-extinguished
The Crime Suppression Division (CSD) has launched an investigation into the burning of peat swamps in Nakhon Si Thammarat’s Chalerm Prakiat district with a land acquisition motive suspected to be behind the blazes.
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.
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.
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.