PEKANBARU - The Terra and Aqua satellite detected 81 hotspots of forest, plantation and peat land fires in Riau Province on Monday afternoon.

The number decreased significantly from 386 hotspots in the morning, Slamet Riyadi, the head of the Pekanbaru meteorological, climatology and geophysics agency s data and information section, said here on Tuesday.

Of the 29 hotspots, 29 were found in Bengkalis district, 22 in Rokan Hilir, 13 in Dumai city, one in Rokan Hulu, and eight respectively in Meranti and Siak.

The visibility on Monday morning was below 2000 meters, but in the evening improved to above 5000, which is categorized as normal.

He, however, predicted that Riau most likely will still be hit by forest fires in the next few days.

The Terra and Aqua satellite detected a total of 528 hotspots of forest, plantation, and peatland fires across Sumatra Island, on Monday morning.

On February 11, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) held a coordination meeting with several government and law enforcement agencies to tackle the problem of haze from forest fires and drought this year.

The government will address the forest fire issue through land and aerial operations. The land operation will involve, among others, military officers, police, forest fire brigade units, and civilian security personnel.

The aerial operations will include air-borne water bombing and weather modification or cloud seeding technologies. The BNBP will rent the Be-200 Fire-Fighting Amphibious aircraft and the Kamov helicopter from Russia for water bombing.***(ant)