JAKARTA, Jan 23 (Bernama) -- President Joko Widodo has warned the country's special team to tackle and prevent forest fires to ensure there is no recurrence of the blaze which occurred in 2015.

Describing last year's fire as the severest which the country had ever faced, he said everyone should learn a lesson from the prevailing weakness as despite efforts to put it out, it was in vain as the blaze continued to spread.

As such, he called on all parties to be always prepared to deal with forest and plantation fires to ensure there was no recurrence of last year's forest fires.

Joko, better known as Jokowi was quoted by online media as saying this when officiating the Coordinated Meeting on Forest and Plantation Fire Prevention 2017 at the National Palace here today.

According to him, the government suffered great losses when all efforts to extinguish the large fire failed.

The forest fires (in 2015) also caused serious haze for several months in some of Indonesia's neighbouring countries, including Malaysia.

Malaysia experienced severe haze for four months with the Air Pollutant Index at a dangerous level, forcing schools in several states in the peninsula to close.

Jokowi said everyone should be thankful that last year, forest fires had decreased by 82.83 per cent and it was hoped it would decrease further this year.

He said plantation and forest fires had affected the Indonesian economy and the fires in 2015 resulted in a loss of Rp220 trillion (about RM650 million) due to the cancellation of flights and the temporary closure of offices.

In addition, the disaster caused health problems with more than 500,000 people, particularly children suffering from respiratory tract infection.

The fire also destroyed 2.6 million hectares of forest, resulting in various forest animals losing their habitat.

-- BERNAMA