TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Around 50 hectares of peatlands in West Aceh are burned, causing heavy smoke in Meulaboh district.

Local military commander Capt. Inf. Sudarsono suspects that the fire was caused by unsustainable farming practices.

“There are four locations of land burning that we found with a total area of 50 hectares. We are collecting the data and information about the owner of the burning lands,” he said amid the efforts to put out the fire in Johan Pahlawan sub-district.

West Aceh Military District personnel and the police have been helping with the effort to extinguish the peatlands manually.

“We are anticipating and extinguishing [the fire] with the available equipment to prevent it from spreading to roads and housing complexes; it’s hard to put out the fire because water sources are not available here. Not to mention that the weather in the region is quite hot because of the dry season,” Sudarsono said.

Ujong Barasko village head Zainuddin said that fire in the region has been raging since Wednesday noon, July 19, and continues to spread to other areas.

He said that local officials are currently looking for the owners of the peatlands to find out the causes of the fire.

ANTARA