EU Fire Response Group (EUFREG)

Donor/Agency: European Union
Executing Agency: Ministry of Forestry
Budget: ECU 363,000 (basic fire fighting equipment, specialist Expertise, and procurement of remote sensing equipment and imagery); channelled through existing forestry projects.
Consultants: Members of existing EU forestry projects
Regions/Provinces: Kalimantan and Sumatra
Project Office: Forest Liaison Bureau, Manggala Wanabakti Building, Block VII, Floor 6, JI. Gatot Subroto, Jakarta 12720.
Tel. 021 5720194, Fax 021 5720219
Director: John Keating
FIMP Office, Manggala Wanabakti Building, Block IV, Floor 5, Ji. Gatot Subroto, Jakarta 10270.
Tel. 021 5720211
Contact: Chris Legg, Yves Laumonier
Time-frame: October 1997-May 1998

Description

EUFREG is under the chairmanship of the Forest Liaison Bureau (formed 2 October 1997). A description of EUFREG is available in EU-Forest Liaison Bureau (1997) and Trigg (1997), and the following task description is extracted from these documents.

Tasks:

• collate all available information and channel it to the EC-Representation for dissemination to Brussels and to EU member state embassies;
• produce regular info-flashes on the evolving situation; coordinate with GOI;
• liaise with other donors;
• act as a focal point between GOI and EU member states;
• assess need for EU aid as situation evolves; coordinate procurement and distribution of aid; and
• provide advice on the coordination of EU member states’ bilateral assistance.

Fire Monitoring

EUFREG mobilised experts from existing EU projects to attempt a rapid estimation of the area affected. The group was requested to comment on the distribution, area, and nature of the fires; to make recommendations for a more detailed study; and to suggest ways in which the existing network of fire monitoring systems in Indonesia could be improved. For this purpose, remotely sensed data were obtained and interpreted using the GIS of the EU Forest Inventory and Monitoring Project (FIMP), and existing GISs within MoF. The general distribution of fires during September was analysed and an attempt was made to measure areas burnt in South Sumatra, as well as determine types of vegetation bumt.

Data used for the assessment consisted of:

• hot spots from the EU FFPCP NOAA station in Palembanc, and the JICA/PHPA
• receiving station in Bogor for Sumatra and Kalimantan;
• hot spots from the GTZ station in Samarinda for Kalimantan and Sulawesi;
• SPOT digital quicklooks from the Centre for Remote Image Sensing and Processing (CRISP) at the National University of Singapore; the images can be downloaded from the Web site (http://www.crisp.nus.sg);
• Landsat TM digital quicklooks from the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES) for Irian Jaya; and
• Landsat TM paper quicklooks from LAPAN for Sumatra and Kalimantan; AlongTrack scanning Radiometer (ATSR-2) images from the ERS-2 satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) were downloaded from the ESA Earth Watching Web Page (http://www.earthl.esrin.esa.it:8080/ew) for comparison with AVHRR data; maps of wildfire occurrence from the US Forest Web page (http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/indofire).

Results

Southern Sumatra (Lampung and South Sumatra) were the focus of Phase 1. Based on rapid estimation, total burnt area in South Sumatra was estimated at about I million ha; a crude extrapolation from South Sumatra to the whole of Indonesia suggested a total in excess of 2 million ha (forest and non-forest). Primary forest appeared to be relatively unaffected. The total area of forest (disturbed and/or logged primary forest and dense secondary) burnt in the whole of Indonesia was probably in the range of 150 000 to 300 000 hectares (EU-FLB 1997).

Phase 2

Phase 11 of EUFREG started in January 1998 and continued for 3 months. During this phase, mapping of fire scars using SPOT quicklooks, AVHRR, and hot spot locations was completed for Sumatra and Kalimantan. It must be bome in mind that this could only be carried out for areas where cloud free imagery was available. Assessments using imagery prior to the fires was made to assess the types of vegetation burned. The results of this phase have not yet been released.

References

European Union-Forest Liaison Bureau. 1997. Land and Forest Fires in Indonesia. Background and Summary Report. 5 pp.

Trigg, S. 1997. All about EUFREG (European Union Fire Response Group). Input paper to the national Workshop on Repelita VII of Forestry abd the 8th Meeting of Consultative Group on Indonesian Forestry (CGIF), Cisarua, Bogor, 10-12 December 1997

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