TheJakartaPost.com - As fires continue ravaging thousands of hectares of land and forest in Sumatra, producing a toxic haze that has spilled over into neighboring countries, new blazes have been detected in Indonesia's part of Borneo island that threaten to export haze to Malaysia and Brunei.

The head of the Kalimantan Regional Center for Environmental Management, Heru Waluyo, said satellite images showed new fires in West, Central and East Kalimantan provinces.

"This is just the early stage. We have yet to see the peak of the fires," he told The Jakarta Post over the weekend. He added that the fires could continue burning into September, when the rainy season is expected to bring some relief to the region.

He said according to the latest information he had received, there were around 40 new "hot spots" in Indonesia's part of Borneo island, the second largest island in the archipelago after Papua.

Heru could not provide information on the total number of fires now burning in Kalimantan or how many hectares of land were affected.

Images from three satellites operated by Singapore's National Environmental Agency showed that as of Sunday there were over 200 hot spots on Borneo island and almost 300 hot spots on Sumatra.

Central Kalimantan Environmental and Conservation Agency head Moses Nicodemus told Antara each hot spot represented an area of around 1.1 square kilometers, meaning that thousands of hectares of land were now burning on Borneo.

Bambang, an official with the West Kalimantan Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, said most of the hot spots detected on the island were in West Kalimantan, where large amounts of land are being illegally burned to clear the way for plantations.

He said the haze produced from the fires was at its thickest early in the morning, limiting visibility to under 200 meters, but by the afternoon visibility improved to around 2,000 meters.

"People are still using fire to clear land for the new planting season. Nothing has changed and it is hard to get them to stop this practice," Bambang told AFP in the West Kalimantan capital Pontianak.

Heru, of the Kalimantan environmental management center, said it was more difficult to deal with the problem in Kalimantan than in Sumatra, because many of the fires in Kalimantan occurred on privately owned land, not in forests.

"The difficult part is, there is a habit here to burn land to mark people's ownership," he said.

He also noted that authorities in the province had trouble dealing with the fires because of a lack of personnel and equipment.

Indonesia has only 1,500 forest firefighters across the entire archipelago, and has yet to sign the ASEAN Transboundary Haze Agreement, which would allow ASEAN members to mobilize resources to assist Indonesia in fighting the blazes.

Heru does not believe the haze has yet to affect neighboring countries. "I have not received complaints from officials in Malaysia or Brunei regarding the haze."

However, satellite images from the Singapore-based ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Center show the wind course is heading toward northern parts of Kalimantan, and Malaysia and Brunei.

They also show hot spots in Malaysia's Sabah on Borneo, which Indonesian officials point to as evidence that not all of the haze blanketing the region is coming from this country.

Last week, the Malaysian Meteorological Department announced that winds were carrying haze from forest fires on Indonesia's Sumatra and Borneo islands to some Malaysian cities, including Kuala Lumpur.