ASMC: Hotspots on Borneo rise to 459 in 24 hours, western Sarawak to see haze

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Photo taken of the Kuching City South Council building from Pullman Hotel shows a light blanket of haze over Kuching this morning. – Picture by Roy Emmor

KUCHING: The air quality in western Sarawak has deteriorated this morning as the number of hotspots on Borneo shot up by more than three folds yesterday in the span of just 24 hours.

According to data on the Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) website, 459 hotspots were detected on Borneo yesterday evening from 114 a day earlier.

While most of the fires are in Indonesia, satellite images showed at least four were detected in Sarawak, which were near the Sabal Forest Reserve in Simunjan, Betong, Tatau and along the Tutoh River in Baram.

“In Kalimantan, parts of South and Central Kalimantan were shrouded in dense haze from persistent hotspot clusters. Scattered hotspots with smoke haze were also detected in West and East Kalimantan. Some of the smoke haze from West Kalimantan has been blown towards western Sarawak,” ASMC noted on the website.

The Department of Environment’s Sri Aman monitoring station recorded the highest Air Pollutant Index (API) reading in the state as of 9am at 124.

An API reading of zero to 50 is good, 51 to 100 is moderate, 101 to 200 is unhealthy, 201 to 300 is very unhealthy and 301 and above is hazardous.

The air quality in Sri Aman breached the unhealthy level at 8pm last night with an API reading of 103.

Another station that recorded unhealthy readings is Samarahan at 108 at 9am, rising from 102 at 7am.

As for the air quality in the state capital, the API reading is still in the moderate range but just barely at 99 at 9am.