SAMBOJA LESTARI: THROUGH THE FIRE

After a fire outbreak that burnt 30 hectares of rehabilitated forest at BOS Foundation’s Orangutan Reintroduction Center at Samboja Lestari in early September, another fire occurred in Samboja Lestari on September 23rd.

The fire started in the early afternoon, and quickly spread through the rehabilitated forest consuming roughly 100 hectares. The team in Samboja Lestari managed to extinguish the fire some time after midnight. But the next morning fires reignited at around 10 am. The fire spread to the area where our newly built orangutan enclosures are being constructed, but fortunately the enclosures are still empty and at the last moment the fire changed direction heading towards the helipad and arboretum. The arboretum is a 159 hectare stretch of land where we have planted more than 750 endangered tree species for the purpose of conservation and research. We lost a significant part of that land through this fire outbreak.

Seventy army personnel from the Cavalry Detachment of Kodam VI Mulawarman and Koramil (local military command) based nearby Samboja Lestari came to our aid. However, the fire was difficult to extinguish as the area is so dry after months of drought and an abundance of wild ferns grow in many parts of Samboja Lestari's forest; just like peat forests, once burned, dry ferns can easily spark back into flame. We desperately needed professional firefighters and serious firefighting equipment to combat the fire at this stage.

Our call for help was answered by the fire department team from TOTAL. The oil company’s incoming fire fighting team were scrambled from 2 bases: Senipah and Balikpapan. Fortunate for us, more teams arrived right after that: the Kutai Kartanegara fire fighting department under coordination of the BPBD (Local Disaster Management Agency) and the Manggala Agni Fire Brigade, a special forest fire-fighting unit formed by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry based in North Panajam Paser Regency.
 
On 29 September, fire once again reestablished around the helipad and swiftly moved in the direction of the office. The team from Manggala Agni Fire Brigade were fortunately still with us, and together with our BOS Foundation firefighters they bravely fought the fire from spreading. They were quickly joined by another team from a nearby company, Pertamina Sanga-sanga region, the Kutai Kartanegara fire bridage, Koramil and the Cavalry once again. At 2 am a new team from East Kalimantan Fire Bridage in Tenggorong joined the effort. Without this significant support, we would have lost a much larger area of forest.

Masks and goggles we bought using a donation given by BOS Australia were all used within two hours, due to the large number of dedicated men and women fighting fire. We simply didn’t have enough equipment to go round.

Several hot spots still recurred on 1st October, but our team who are conducting constant patrols and are on high alert has so far managed to extinguish them. By the 2nd October, we were finally able to secure all other areas from the fire. However, we are still conducting continous patrols in anticipation of new hot spots resurfacing.
 

During the fire outbreak, we did not evacuate our rehabilitated orangutans. We are very fortunate that these fires did not reach the area where we care for our orangutans and we managed to undertake our daily orangutan activities, including Forest School, as usual.

With researchers predicting that this year may be even more serious than the fires of 1997, we are on full planning alert and in the process of buying all the desperately needed equipment. We still need basic standard equipment to complement the recently purchased equipment such as rakes, axes, flappers, masks, googles, boots, protective clothing, water storage containers and hose. Prevention, early detection and extinguisihing new hot spots is evidently significant at the moment and support from all parties is heavily needed to complete and protect our team and orangutans in Samboja Lestari.

Fires are occuring across all of our programs, Samboja Lestari, Nyaru Menteng, and Mawas, and we give our heartfelt thanks to all those who have already pledged support to our firefighting efforts with donations for equipment including BOS Australia, BOS Switzerland, BOS Germany, Save the Orangutan, Orangutan Protection Foundation, OuTrop, The Great Projects, and International Primate Protection League (IPPL). We also give our heartfelt thanks to Samboja based Koramil, Cavalry from Kodam VI Mulawarman, TOTAL E&P Indonesia, the Manggala Agni fire brigade based in North Panajam Paser Regency, BPBD Kutai Kartanegara, the Kutai Kartanegara Fire Brigade, and PERTAMINA Sanga-Sanga region. With at least another month or two without rain, we are prepared for more fires and remain on high alert.