Transboundary haze coming: 455 hotspots in Kalimantan

MIRI: Even as Sarawak battles new wildfires cases daily, the number of hot spots in neighbouring Kalimantan has shot up by three times within a day.

The fear of serious transboundary haze coming into Sarawak had grown, said the State Disaster Relief Management Committee on Thursday morning (Sept 5).

There are 455 hotspots in Kalimantan and four in Sarawak this morning, it said in this latest update.

Visibility in Kuching has been reduced to 4km.

Three places in Sarawak are reporting unhealthy air pollutant index level of above 100. They are Sri Aman (122), Samarahan (105) and Miri (101).

Mejar Ismail Mahedin, secretary of Sarawak Disaster Relief Management committee, said haze from Kalimantan was expected to hit Sarawak if the wind blew into the state from there.

There are 455 hot spots

"The number of hot spots today in Kalimantan has tripled from yesterday.

"That will bring haze into Kuching, Samarahan and Sri Aman depending on the wind direction," he said.

A hot spot is a wildfire that is at least one square kilometre in size and is big enough to be detected from satellites in outer space.

They appear as red dots in satellite images.

Sarawak Fire and Rescue Department in its latest update said inside Sarawak, there was on average of about 10 new wildfire cases being reported daily.

On Wednesday alone, there were 19 cases reported. Firefighters were doing their best to tackle these fires, it added.