Southeast Asia Smog to Return as Indonesia Farmers Burn ForestsThe Singapore Meteorological Service has detected more than 200 hot spots on satellite images caused by plantation fires in Central Sumatra. An increase in the number of fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan over the past two days may cause a return of the haze the Singapore government said. In 1997 fires created a cloud of smoke that stretched more than 200 kilometers.
``The fires are developing very rapidly in Central Sumatra and Kalimantan,'' said Lim Hock, director of the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing in Singapore, which monitors the blazes. ``Plantations are burned to clear vegetation to grow new crops.''
Indonesian farmers and plantation companies destroy thousands of acres of rainforest each year between May and October, when the region normally experiences dry weather, to plant crops such as oil palm and coffee.
Satellite pictures of the burning regions have been sent to Indonesian authorities as part of an regional effort to deal with the fires in Sumatra and Borneo.
The Ministry of the Environment, which is monitoring the air quality in Singapore said the island nation may be affected if the ``fires spread further and the winds change to a more westerly direction.''
``The wind is blowing from the south-west direction and is more likely to affect West Malaysia,'' said Lim Kim Hwa, an associate scientist at the remote imaging center.
Drier-than-normal weather in 1997 fed blazes that caused $4.4 billion in damages, said the World Wide Fund for Nature. The resulting haze prompted daily health warnings in Singapore that scared away tourists, while airlines had to delay or cancel flights because of poor visibility.