A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster Forest and land fires in vast areas of Borneo (Kalimantan) and Sumatra resulted in a very dense haze starting from.
The Centre for Health Crisis of the Ministry of Health reported that the forest fires started in the Riau Province and later spread into seven provinces, four in Kalimantan (West, East, South and Central Kalimantan) and three in Sumatra Island (Jambi, Riau and South Sumatra). Already in September 2015, the haze started affecting neighboring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. The effects of haze were increasingly amplified by the El Niño phenomenon that in the region caused a mild to severe drought and resulted in a significant delay of the rainy season, therefore delaying the beneficial effects of seasonal rains as a mitigating effect.
The forest fires and the resulting haze have been the worst ever in terms of casualties, the duration of the event, the economic loss and the wide impact on people’s health and the environment.1The BMKG (National Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency) recorded more than 1,100 hotspots spread all over the affected area, mainly in the islands of Sumatera and Kalimantan and to a lesser extent in Papua. In Sumatera, a total of 771 hotspots were recorded as follows: 33 hotspots in Bengkulu, 99 in Jambi, 41 in Bangka Belitung, 42 in Lampung, 28 in Riau, 8 in West Sumatera and 530 in South Sumatera. In Kalimantan, a total of 332 hotspots were recorded spreading in the four provinces of West Kalimantan (22 hotspots), South Kalimantan (28 hotspots), Central Kalimantan (188 hotspots) and East Kalimantan (94 hotspots).
The air pollutant index (API) level ranged between 150 to 1,950 μgram/m3 with the highest API (1,950 μgram/m3) recorded on 21 October 2015 in Central Kalimantan Province (normal condition is 0 to 50 μgram/m3). People, especially children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with pre-existing respiratory problems became more vulnerable to upper respiratory tract infection (URI), eye irritation, pneumonia, asthma, skin irritation, which resulted into 11 casualties. BNPB data shows that the people who particularly suffered from URI were located in Jambi province (around 150,000 people) and South Sumatera province (115,000 people). In the forest and land affected areas, the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) recorded 2.61 million hectares of burnt land. Visibility went down to between 20 to 500 meters for weeks in most of the affected area, which caused delays or even cancellation of a number of flights in various provinces. This disaster also hampered daily activities and caused schools, universities and some offices to close down. During the first half of November 2015, a few heavy rains swept some of the provinces affected by forest fires, particularly those located close to the equator. By mid-November, rains had extinguished the majority of forest and land fires throughout Indonesia, while in some cases the risk of peat fires to re-ignite continued due to uncertain trends of the impact of El Nino. Despite the net improvement of the situation in late 2015, many people living in these affected areas continued to suffer from the effects of the previous long exposure to haze: data from the health services in West Kalimantan show that the number of respiratory infections remained high even after the end of forest fires.
Due to protracted diminution of quantity of rain in some areas, the haze season is expected to come as early as April in 2016. To date BNPB has reported 151 hotspots in Sumatra and Kalimantan, while parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan have entered the first period of the dry season.
The IFRC, on behalf of the PMI, would like to thank all partners for the generous contribution to the replenishment of this DREF. These include Netherlands Red Cross/Netherlands Government (SEF) and Canadian Red Cross Society/Canadian Government (DFATD). The unspent balance of CHF 42,871 will be returned to the DREF pot.