KUCHING: Firefighters are working round-the-clock to extinguish forest fires in the state, hopefully before school reopens next Monday.
State Fire and Rescue Department director Khirudin Drahman said he had instructed his men to go all out to put out the forest fires by this weekend.
“I’ve given instructions this week for a total knockout operation. We will try our best this Thursday, Friday and Saturday to knock out the fires especially in areas such as Kuala Baram.
“We have also changed the working shift from 12 hours to 24 hours to ensure adequate manpower. In a day we used to have 20 men in a shift. After changing to the 24-hour shift, we’ll perhaps have 35 men on the ground a day,” he told reporters.
Khirudin was met by reporters after officiating at the closing ceremony of Public Sector Conducive Ecosystem (EKSA) throughout Sarawak and the state Innovative and Creative Group (KIK) Convention held at the State Library yesterday.
Firefighting is continuing with the help of other agencies, while scattered rain and change of wind direction had helped ease the situation.
Khirudin said a Bombardier aircraft deployed by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency arrived in Miri on yesterday (Aug 15) morning to join the firefighting in Kuala Baram which has been going on since the beginning of the month.
Air quality in the area reached hazardous level recently, but following the integrated operation undertaken by all agencies the air pollutant index (API) reading at the ILP Miri station in Kuala Baram improved to 215 as at 5pm yesterday, compared to a high of 405 at 1am.
The API is categorised as ‘good’ from 0 to 50, ‘moderate’ (51 to 100), ‘unhealthy’ (101 to 200), ‘very unhealthy’ (201 to 300), and ‘hazardous’ (301 and above).
“As of today, the forest fires in Miri have been reduced due to downpour on Wednesday and heavy downpour in Sibu also helped to reduce the fires there,” he said.
