Pekanbaru, Feb. 12 -- Riau Governor Syamsuar issued a land and forest fire emergency preparedness status, effective Feb 11-Oct 31, 2020, as wildfires sporadically ravaged certain areas of 10 of the province's 12 districts and cities since early 2020.

The Riau Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) was quoted by ANTARA in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau Province, on Wednesday, as stating that the land and forest fires have, so far, gutted some 271 hectares of land in the districts of Siak and Bengkalis as well as Dumai City.

Siak District has suffered extensively from this early year's wildfires that ravaged 98.47 hectares of land, while land and forest fires destroyed a total of 60.90 hectares of land in Bengkalis District and 31.85 hectares ...