MIRI: The Sarawak govern-ment is looking into new approaches to tackle recurring peat fires, said Urban Development and Resources Assistant Minister Datuk Len Talif Salleh. For Miri, particularly in Kuala Baram where currently a total of 1,400 hectares of land were destroyed by raging peat fires since August 1, among the approaches is to construct more tube wells to facilitate flooding within the affected area.
“Peat fire in Kuala Baram is a localised issue, we have been trying many (conventional) approaches including fire separation technique, but to no avail and we need to re-think on the solutions,” said Len Talif at the closing ceremony of the ‘Kelab Pencinta Alam Sekitar’ (PALS) convention held yesterday.
The three-day convention which began on August 20, involved a total of 79 club members from 20 secondary schools across the state. He stressed that the current situation worsened because of the change in weather condition compared to three years ago.
“The persistent hot and dry weather that we are facing currently differs with what we had three years ago, whereby when it comes to June, July and August we had rain almost every week unlike now,” he explained.
