Creeping blaze: Part of the forest fire spreading to Lot 1 of the wildlife reserve in Kinabatangan, Sandakan.
KOTA KINABALU: Poachers may have caused a fire that razed nearly 100ha of forest in the wildlife-rich lower Kinabatangan Sanctuary.
Sabah Forestry Department director Datuk Sam Mannan said rangers found the carcass of a deer and bullet casings in the area, suggesting that poachers could have killed the deer and cooked it there.
“Maybe they did not bother to put out the fire and just left it smouldering,” he said, adding that the fires were between Kg Sukau and Kg Abai.
The fire began late Tuesday around Lot 2 of the sanctuary and spread to parts of Lot 1 before heavy rain put it out on Thursday.
Firemen including rangers from the forestry and other departments took steps to douse the fire but it was the heavy downpour that helped to put it out completely.
Sam said most of the areas damaged were a mix of peat, swamp and mangrove forests between Sukau and Abai.
The fire also damaged almost 2ha of the Trusan Kinabatangan Forest reserve that borders the sanctuary.
Sabah Wildlife Department deputy director Augustine Tuuga said that the proboscis monkeys and other animals in the area were not harmed by the fire, since most of them had fled the area.
“The damage is mostly in the forest area,” he said, adding that they would work with the Forestry Department to find out the cause of the fire and take appropriate action.
The flora- and fauna-rich sanctuary was gazetted as a conservation area in 1999.
