Indonesia's government is preparing an aerial operation for artificial rain-seeding in six provinces experiencing critical forest fire conditions. The provinces are Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan.
The rain-seeding operation is hampered by the limited availability of rain clouds, although the majority of land in the six provinces is peatland that is highly prone to fire. Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security Djamari Chaniago said the forest area that has burned has reached 107,000 hectares to date, and he expressed hope that rain clouds would appear within the coming week.
The government has prepared 43 helicopters and up to 15 aircraft to conduct the aerial operation. Weather modification technology only accelerates the rainfall process by seeding rain clouds with salt, but it still requires the presence of clouds in the first place. Djamari noted that rain clouds in the six provinces will only appear for 3-4 days until 18 August 2026.
The government also prepared mitigation through ground operations, including the use of flexible water tanks and construction of artificial wells at fire-prone points. In addition, the Ministry of Environment will distribute a circular prohibiting land-burning as a method of land clearing, after two regional governments had previously authorised land-burning of up to 2 hectares for land clearing purposes.
Head of the National Disaster Management Agency Suharyanto stated that rain clouds are the best way to prevent and handle forest fires in the six provinces. Each helicopter can only carry four tonnes of water, and with three units dispatched simultaneously, the total water that can be dropped is only 12 tonnes, which is only sufficient to extinguish fire in an area of 10 square metres on peatland. Suharyanto said the entire aircraft fleet is now on standby to utilise rain clouds immediately if they appear before 18 August.
