Kota Kinabalu: The scale of a three-day forest fire which destroyed a vast forested area in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary has left members of the Kinabatangan Corridor-of-Life Tourism Operators Association (KiTA) stunned.

"I am shocked to read the extent of damage done by the fire," said KiTA President, Alex Yee.

"Actually KiTA was alerted to check out the site by an officer of the Sabah Wildlife Department last Tuesday (July 12) afternoon but we had no boats available to mount an investigation as all boats of our members were tied up with scheduled afternoon wildlife watch cruises," he said.

'In fact, KiTA spent a considerable sum of money and time to launch a regular river patrol unit with the Sabah Wildlife Department in November 2015, the whole idea was pre-emptive and stay ahead of problems like last Tuesday-Thursday's big fire," he noted.

"But SWD subsequently asked KiTA to suspend the patrolling on technical regulatory grounds," Yee said.

"As a result, KiTA ceased the daily operation and relieved the two boatmen, including an Honorary Wildlife Warden recruited to mount daily wildlife focused patrolling function," he said.

"I am certain that had our boat patrol unit not been suspended, we would have picked up the fire in its early stage and rallied firefighting action to nip it in the bud during the rounds because Lot 1 and Lot 2 of the Sanctuary is within our scheduled route," he asserted.

"While we wait for SWD to sort out the technicality of KiTA resuming the operation of the patrol unit, I urge stakeholders along the Kinabatangan River to work together as eyes and ears for the authorities to protect this fragile wildlife sanctuary," he said.

"As it is, not all tourism operators along the river are members of KiTA and as such, some operators are still not part of the concerted efforts to protect the area," Yee said.

Meanwhile, Sabah Forestry Department Director Datuk Sam Mannan said the exact area size of the wildlife sanctuary destroyed is not known.

As it stands, the huge fire that started last Tuesday destroyed an area equivalent to 50 to 100 football fields comprising peat swamp forest, fresh water swamp forest and mangrove forests, as a standard football pitch covers 1.08 hectares.

Upon its gazettement in 2005, the SWD was given the sole legal mandate to govern this 25,102- hectare wildlife sanctuary.

However, the massive Tuesday-Thursday fire spread and destroyed five acres of an adjacent newly gazetted Trusan Kinabatangan Class 1 Forest Reserve which falls under the control of the Sabah Forestry Department which dispatched 10 trained forest fire fighters to contain the spread.

But without a heavy afternoon downpour which extinguished the fire Thursday, the damage could have been considerably bigger.