SHAH ALAM, 15 Oct: The Selangor Fire and Rescue Department, in general, are forced to camp out for months to put out open fires.

In the mission to put out the fire at the North Kuala Langat Reserve Forest, the Fire Senior Superintendent II, South Selangor Zone Chief, Azmi Sadon, said that high commitment is needed to control and put out the fire.

“Focus will be fully given because the location of the fire is near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Putrajaya,” he said.

Azmi said to Selangor Kini that the dry weather and low rainfall are among the causes of the fire in February and June.

“Initial investigation found that it was caused by the hot weather which caused the forest to become dry while the peat soil makes it easy for the fire to spread,” he said.

Therefore, Azmi asked the public to not conduct open burning during the drought and to lofge a complaint of they have information on open burning.

On October 10, Chief Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali also visited the location of the fire in Pulau Kempas near the North-South Expressway Central Link (Elite).

Mohamed Azmin said that peat soil has a large potential for fire to occur and it is hard to be detected because it begins underground.

He said that continuous monitoring needs to be enhanced to avoid peat fires in forests to repeat which causes serious air pollution.

Throughout this year, three forest fires were recorded to have happened at the Kuala Langat Forest Fire around February, June and August.

The fire in February was recorded as the biggest this year with an area that covered 294 acres, costing RM210,547.53.

NS