CNA – Indonesia is bracing for the possibility of widespread forest and land fires this year as scientists predict the return of the El Nino weather phenomenon in the second half of 2023.
“We are already seeing an upward trend on instances of forest and land fires, even though we are still transitioning from the rainy season to dry season,” Indonesian National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Abdul Muhari told a discussion on Tuesday.
Muhari said there were four cases of forest and land fires in early May. This number has since risen to 16 by early June. The fires occurred in parts of Sumatra and the Indonesian side of Borneo, he added.
“If it is already like this during the transition period, we can imagine what it will be like at the height of the dry season,” Abdul Muhari said.
For decades, widespread forest and land fires in Indonesia have been responsible for thick and hazardous haze that travelled for hundreds of kilometres into neighbouring countries, affecting the health of millions of people.
The last major forest and land fires in Indonesia occurred in 2019. That year, more than 162,000 hectares of peatlands and forests were burned, emitting a record 624 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, BNPB data showed.
The 2019 forest and land fires coincided with two weather phenomenons which resulted in a prolonged drought in the archipelago nation: El Nino in the Pacific and the so-called positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) event.
Cases of forest and land fires dropped significantly over the last three years because of the La Nina weather phenomenon which caused more rainfall. Last year, forest and land fires affected around 20,000 hectares of land, one eighth of what it was in 2019, according to data by BNPB.
However, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said there are signs that the warm weather phenomenon El Nino will be back this year. Models made by the organisation suggest that a positive IOD could also make a return and exacerbate El Nino’s drying effect.
Climatologist at Indonesia’s Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Urip Haryoko said Indonesia could experience a prolonged dry season that could last until March or April of next year.
