Agency pledges readiness for upcoming fire season

The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation has promised to better prepare to deal with the upcoming bush fire season in the northern region, according to Sompoj Maneerat, spokesman of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation.

The bush fires — which are a source of hazardous to health fine particulate dust PM2.5, usually start at the end of the year and last until March causing severe air pollution and the destruction of thousands of rai of forest land.

From October of last year until April this year, firefighters put out 7,607 wildfires in the northern region which damaged a total of 167,543 rai of forest.

Among the steps to be taken is preventing fires at targeted hot spots by sending more officials and firefighters to these locations.

The department has defined these hot spots based on forest fire data collected over a period of three years.

For this year, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has been ordered by the government to achieve “zero hot spots” in vulnerable provinces. That means between March 15-April 30 — the peak time for the forest fires, some hot spots must be free of fire, he said.

Vulnerable provinces of the upcoming bush fire season are Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Phrae, Nan, Phayao, Lamphun, Tak and Lampang.

In a related development, levels of PM2.5 — atmospheric particulate matter (PM) with a diameter of 3% that of a human hair, rose yesterday.

Pralong Damrongthai, director-general of the Pollution Control Department said yesterday that the level of PM2.5 in some areas of Bangkok reached a “slightly unsafe level”. The so-called safe threshold is 50 microgrammes per cubic metre (μg/m³).