Medan, N Sumatra, July 2 -- The Samosir Office of the North Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) has intensified efforts to combat wildfires ravaging the protected forest area near the Tele observation tower of Lake Toba, an official stated.

Despite the intensified mitigation efforts involving a joint team of firefighters, as of Tuesday evening, the wildfires remained unextinguished, the BPBD-Samosir Office head, Sarimpol Manihuruk, remarked.

The agency detected four hotspots indicating land and forest fires within a pine forest area near the Tele observation tower, he told journalists on the island of Samosir on Tuesday.

To extinguish the forest fires, the agency deployed three fire trucks and a joint team of personnel from sever...