EduAsiaNews, Jakarta — Forest and land fires occurring within concession areas do not automatically prove that permit-holding companies deliberately set the fires. Determining the cause and those responsible requires scientific examination, incident reconstruction and accountable investigation findings.
Fire expert Raffles Panjaitan said the public needed to distinguish between the location of a fire and the actions of the party that caused it. The presence of fire in an area is a fact that must be examined, but does not by itself establish who started it.
“The statement that a fire occurred in a concession is different from saying that a company set fire to the concession. The first statement describes the location of an incident, while the second alleges an action that must be proven,” Raffles said in a statement in Jakarta on xxxxxx.
According to him, an investigation needs to answer several fundamental questions, including where the fire first emerged, when it started, how it spread and what evidence links the incident to a particular party.
The investigation should also examine various possibilities, including ignition sources both inside and outside the concession. All such possibilities should be treated as hypotheses requiring evidence rather than as preliminary conclusions.
“Fire does not follow administrative or concession boundaries. Therefore, the area that eventually burns is not necessarily the same as the location where the fire initially started. The relationship between the two must be traced through field evidence and a chronology of events,” he said.
He explained that an analysis of wind conditions, available fuel, fire-spread patterns, witness accounts, as well as records of when the fire was detected and responded to, could help reconstruct the incident. These data need to be examined together so that conclusions do not rely solely on a single image or geographic coordinate.
Geospatial expert Asep Karsidi added that an overlap between hotspots and concession maps should be regarded as an indication requiring further investigation, rather than conclusive evidence identifying those responsible for the fire.
According to him, satellite data have specific measurement characteristics and limitations. Heat-detection coordinates in certain products indicate the center of a detection pixel and therefore cannot be directly treated as the exact location of the ignition source.
“Maps can help identify the area where indications of fire have been detected. However, maps alone cannot establish who started the fire or whether it was deliberate,” Asep said.
He said the analysis should use legally recognized concession boundary maps, recording-time data and sequential satellite imagery. The findings should then be cross-checked with field investigations, particularly when indications of fire are detected near the boundaries of managed areas.
Credible handling of forest and land fires requires careful distinctions between the location of an incident, the cause of the fire, the party responsible and a company’s legal responsibility. Such an approach can provide the public with more comprehensive information, give companies fair room to clarify the circumstances, and ensure that law enforcement remains focused on evidence and environmental protection (**).
