Batam, Kepulauan Riau (ANTARA News) - Some 570 hot spots were recently detected on Sumatra Island, especially in Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra provinces, Channel News Asia (CNA) reported on Tuesday.

Indonesia`s neighbor Singapore recorded 62 in the pollutant standard index (PSI), a decrease from 73 PSI on Monday which was the highest index of air pollution coming from Indonesia`s forest fires this year.

According to CNA, haze from Indonesia`s Sumatra and Kalimantan Islands has covered Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand.

In Riau Islands province haze has been covering Batam, Tanjung Pinang and Karumun districts over the past few weeks.

Forest fires have affected at least eight provinces in the country, namely North Sumatra, Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and South Sulawesi.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier instructed relevant agencies to impose legal sanctions on plantation owners who used fires to clear forest areas for plantations.

"Those who set forests on fire, mostly big plantation companies, must get legal sanction," Communication and Information Minister Sofyan Djalil said quoting the Head of State recently.

President Yudhoyono also instructed Coordinating Minister for People`s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie in his capacity as chairman of the refugee and disaster mitigation coordinating board (Bakornas PBP), to put out forest fires by conducting cloud seeding and dropping water bombs.

"The President has said the haze from forest fires was very disturbing. Therefore, he asked the PBP Bakornas chief to put out as many hot spots as possible," Minister Djalil said.

A total of 52,599 hot spots were found in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi from June to August 2006, Koes Saparjadi, an expert at the forestry ministry said in Yogyakarta recently.

From June to August this year, the country recorded 8,476.5 forest fires in seven provinces, he said at the Sixth Workshop on Asian Forest Partnership (AFP) taking place in Yogyakarta, early last month.