The forest fire episode of 1997/1998 in Indonesia consumed 10 million hectares of forest and lands and released 2.6 Gt of C to the atmosphere, where damage cost was estimated at US$ 10 Billion. Most of the smokes believed come from peatlands due to the land preparation using fire. Transboundary haze pollution due to the smoke from land preparation using fire become a big problem in Indonesia every years especially when the dry season come since last 10 years. It has been found that the smoke of fire rooted from land preparation using fire mostly (60-80%) from an oil palm and industrial forest plantation illegally where rest of it to be believed made by shifting cultivation which unfortunately usually blaming for the smokes occurred. Forest management and land use practices in Sumatra and Kalimantan have evolved very rapidly over the past three decades. Poor logging practices resulted in large amounts of waste will left in the forest, greatly elevating fire hazard. Failure by the government and concessionaires to protect logged forests and close old logging roads led to an invasion of the forest by agricultural settlers whose land clearances practices increased the risk of fire.

Field experiment had been done in peat area belong to the local community in Pelalawan village, Pelalawan district, Riau Province during dry season in the period of 2001 to 2002 especially in order to know the possibility to using fire in the land preparation area. Results of the research shown that fuel load drying can be used to minimize fuel moisture content that hopefully would reduce smoke production during burning. Burning technique and accompanied by slashing activity and drying for at least 3-4 weeks will help combustion process which finally reduce peat destruction through penetration heat. Reducing peat destruction could be reached if penetration heat from fire could be protected downward through close canal made surrounded burnt area. 

Click HERE to download the document (0.13 MB)