Comment: Fires in Russia and Indonesia

Published on The Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com)

The Jakarta Post | Tue, 08/31/2010 4:45 PM | readers forum
Aug. 24, p. 6: The recent heat waves and resulting fires in West and Central Russia were said to be the worst in Russian history. Indeed, this event corresponds with the fact that global temperature in 2010 have been the warmest on record, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). However, closer examination reveals that the outbreak of fire in Russia were similar to Indonesia’s experience — particularly in 1998 and 2006 — when peat land fires caused incidents of regional haze that affected other ASEAN countries. (By Sofiah Jamil, Singapore).

Your comments:
It seems quite funny to learn that a recommendation proposed by the author of the article above concerning the necessity to introduce a “Peat land Irrigation Initiatives” measure in order to combat peat land fires. I think the author has, to a certain extent, a limited understanding about one of the most important root causes of peat fires, which is over-drainage problems. Once peat lands are drained, there is a greater possibility for fire to occur as peat becomes drier and susceptible to combustion.
One proper strategy to resolve the over-drained peat lands is through keeping the ground water table and surface water levels as high as possible, especially during the dry season, so that the peat remains wet and humid making it difficult to ignite. A good measure to maintain the water table and surface water levels is through closing or block all open canals constructed in the peatlands.
A “closed dam” approach is well recognized as a proper technical measure to prevent peat lands from being drained to excess. The closed dam system is somewhat different to irrigation systems in terms of its function. The former is built in order to overwhelm water shortage, while, the latter is to release excess water storage from the system. Hence, proposing irrigation systems for combating fire in peatland seems to me has a contradictory to efforts restoring degraded peat lands. To reduce the occurrence of fires in peat lands simply involves stopping stop any kind of peatland drainage, including canals or ditch digging as well as stopping peat land conversion to other land uses.

Alue Dohong
Palangka Raya,
Central Kalimantan
— JP