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Pekanbaru. As the country transitions into the dry season, Riau’s provincial government has put the region on red alert to deal with forest fires after recording a spike in the number of potential hot spots.

Syaid Nurjaya, the head of Riau’s Forestry and Land Office, said on Tuesday his office had already sent out warnings to the police and all district heads in the province to notify them of the danger and prepare them for possible fire outbreaks.

“At the moment, a patrol team has been dispatched into the field in order to monitor and handle the fires, which could happen at any time,” he said.

“The team will be ready 24 hours a day.”

Satellite monitoring from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Pekanbaru office of the Climatology, Meteorology, and Geophysics Agency (BKMG) have turned up 24 potential hot spots in the past few days. That is a significant increase from Monday, when just nine potential hot spots were recorded.

The northern port city of Dumai recorded the most hot spots, with 10, while Bengkalis district had seven, Rokan Hilir five and Siak two.

Philip Mustamu, the head of the BMKG in Pekanbaru, said temperatures across the province had reached 34.7 degrees Celsius, which is considered to be near-extreme weather.

“It [the dry season] began last week and we need to be on the alert for the increasing number of these hot spots,” he said.

He added that a number of minor fires had already created a smoky haze over Dumai, Rokan Hilir and Bengkalis.

As part of its preparations, the provincial administration this year has already allocated a budget of Rp 3.5 billion ($378,000) to increase public awareness about forest fires and to strengthen the region’s fire-fighting capabilities with new logistical supplies and equipment.

Fadrizal Labay, head of Riau’s Environmental Office, said the disbursement of funds was entirely under the authority of the province’s Center for Land and Forest Fire Management (Pusdalkarhutla), which is currently chaired by the deputy governor, Mambang Mit.

Bambang, 38, a resident of West Dumai, said visibility in the area due to smoke was limited to between 200 and 300 meters in the morning, improved during the day, then returned to hazy overnight. “The air quality here is getting worse because it is mixed with the smoke from the forest fires,” he said.

A 2007 report by the World Bank said Indonesia was among the world’s top three greenhouse gas emitters, with a large part of those emissions coming from deforestation and forest fires.

The report found that forest fires accounted for 57 percent of the country’s nonindustrial carbon emissions.

Riau is located on the eastern side of Sumatra Island and borders on neighboring countries Malaysia and Singapore, which are also affected by the haze from forest fires in Indonesia. Fires on both Sumatra and Kalimantan have become an annual problem for all three countries.

Environmental groups say the Indonesian government is ultimately responsible for the region-wide problem because of its systematic failure to enforce laws designed to cut the country’s rapid rate of deforestation.

Activists have said that official data shows that Indonesia has lost between a quarter and a third of its forests since 1990, primarily due to unrestrained logging and the overdevelopment of land for agriculture.

1982 and 1983
Extensive forest fires across Riau and Kalimantan. There are also smaller fires on Java and Sulawesi.

1987, 1991 and 1994
Large-scale forest fires affect Riau, Kalimantan, Java and Sulawesi. More than 3,300 square kilometers of forest are destroyed.

1997 and 1998
Considered the worst years on record, fires destroy 97,000 square kilometers of forest in Kalimantan and in parts of Sumatra.

1999 to 2005
Annual forest fires affect Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java and Sulawesi. Forests are burned off each year by farmers and plantation owners to clear land for development. From various sources