Indonesia President Joko Widodo, centre, walks with TNI chief General Gatot Nurmantyo, left, and Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya as they review the handling of forest fires at the Long Rimbo village in Kampar regency, Indonesia Riau province, yesterday in this picture taken by Antara Foto.

DPA
Jakarta/Bangkok

Six countries will help Indonesia fight forest fires which have sent choking smog across parts of South-East Asia, President Joko Widodo said yesterday.
Joko on Thursday announced that he had asked friendly countries to help extinguish the fires, in a reversal from an earlier stance of rejecting foreign involvement.
Australia, China, Russia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea have expressed readiness to help, with the Singapore team being the first to arrive yesterday, Joko said.
“I expect help [from other countries] will start to arrive on Sunday,” Joko was quoted as saying by the state-run Antara news agency in Riau, one of the six provinces on Sumatra and Borneo island affected by the haze.
Foreign assistance mainly involved sending aircraft to carry out water bombings to extinguish the fires on Sumatra
island, he said.
Joko said fires in peatlands were difficult to extinguish because they could burn underground for a long time even though no blazes were visible on the surface.
Haze from forest fires is an annual hazard that also frequently affects neighbouring Singapore, Malaysia and
Thailand.
The pollution has led this year to school closures, flight disruptions and worsening respiratory conditions in areas
affected.
The practice of open burning to clear land for agriculture is illegal but common in
Indonesia.
THAI OFFICIALS CONCERNED: Thai authorities on the resort of Phuket are growing increasingly concerned with the effects that the Indonesian haze has had on local tourism.
“We have had several flight cancellations and diverted routes over the past days,” Anoma Vongyai, director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) in Phuket, said yesterday.
According to Anoma, the TAT has started a group along with provincial authorities to monitor the effects of the haze on tourism and potential health hazards.
“We have had to tell tourists that it was unsafe to go outside or to wear a mask if they do over the last few days,” she said.
Locals yesterday sent an open letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo calling for action.
The letter asked the president to “put more effort, people and resources” into reducing the smoke.
Phuket is Thailand’s largest island and a major tourist
destination.
Around 2mn foreign tourists visit the island every year.
Haze from plantation and forest fires in Indonesia have reached Singapore and Malaysia over the past week, causing schools to close and flights to be disrupted in what has become an annual point of
tension between the countries.