Battling 276 fires on equinox day

KUALA LUMPUR: On the day of the equinox, firemen were kept busy trying to put out as many as 276 fires due to the heatwave.

The Fire and Rescue Department said it detected 10 major hotspots, all in Pahang and Sabah.

“It was not as bad as February 2014 when we were getting over 1,000 cases a day,” said Fire and Rescue Department deputy director-general (operations) Datuk Soiman Jahid.

Pahang recorded a hotspot in Pekan and three in Temerloh. There were five hotspots in Pedalaman and one in Sandakan, Sabah.

Soiman said the size of these hotspots were still unclear but said they were detectable by satellites.

He said firemen were called to extinguish 298 fires on Saturday and 276 fires on Sunday.

Perak, Kedah, Sabah and Penang were the most “combustible” states over the weekend, accounting for 51% or 294 fire cases, he said.

He said not a single fire was reported in Kuala Lumpur.

Bush and forest fires made up the most number of cases. There were 210 bush fires and 26 forest fires on Saturday, with all the forest fires located in Sabah.

On Sunday, there were 246 bush fires while the Sabah forest fires were all extinguished, with no new cases. As of 2pm yesterday, most parts of peninsular Malaysia’s west coast recorded moderate air pollutant index readings while Banting recorded an unhealthy reading of 110.

Most parts of the peninsula’s east coast and Sabah and Sarawak recorded healthy API readings.

Malaysia is now experiencing hot and dry weather caused by the El Nino phenomenon and the Malay­sian Meteorological Department has predicted that the situation will only end in May or June.