Helicopter Water Bombing Is Ineffective in Extinguishing Peatland Fires - Tempo.co English

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Amid the many disasters battering Indonesia, catching up with Suharyanto, Chief of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), is no easy task. The three-star Army general spends much of his time in disaster zones. In September 2026, for instance, he shuttled between Jakarta and Kalimantan and Sumatra to monitor efforts to contain forest and land fires.

Suharyanto was initially in West Kalimantan on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. Tempo’s plan to interview him there changed when he suddenly left for Palembang, South Sumatra, as forest and land fires intensified. He briefly returned to Jakarta for a meeting with Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Djamari Chaniago, then flew back to Palembang the same day.

Meeting Tempo at the Coordination Post of the Forest and Land Fire Task Force in Palembang on Friday morning, September 18, Suharyanto said the area burned in South Sumatra had initially covered only about 20 hectares. By midmonth, however, it had reached 639 hectares. “South Sumatra had been relatively quiet at first,” he said.

In an interview with Tempo journalist Friski Riana and photographer Tony Hartawan, Suharyanto, a 1989 graduate of the Military Academy in Magelang, Central Java, said firefighting efforts were now racing against the emergence of new fires and the reactivation of old ones. He also maintained that this year’s firefighting operations had been more effective than in previous years.