Officials wage no-win battle against Chiang Mai’s raging fires
Forest fires continued to rage in Chiang Mai province on Wednesday despite a multi-day major effort to stop them.
The Chiang Mai provincial administration said 291 hotspots of burning forest were detected in 19 out of 25 districts of the northern province in the morning, the highest this year.
Mae Taeng district had the most hotspots, at 40.
Officials reported that great difficulty in extinguishing the fires, due to most blazes taking place on steep mountain slopes or deep ravines.
They said the combination of dry leaves and hot weather is causing fires to rapidly spread.
The Chiang Mai administration said the air quality on Wednesday morning had improved slightly from Tuesday, but the levels of PM2.5 ultra fine pollutants in many areas remained above the safe threshold of 37.5 microgrammes per cubic metre of air (μg/m3).
On Wednesday morning, 14 districts of Chiang Mai has PM2.5 levels ranging from 81.6 to 122 μg/m3, with another 11 other districts experiencing from 46.6 to 74.2 μg/m3.
Chiang Mai deputy governor Thossapol Puan-udom held a Wednesday meeting with the committee in charge of addressing PM2.5 pollutants, and instructed officials to strictly enforce the ban on burning farm by-products, leftovers and weeds without permission.
The meeting heard that from January 1 to March 11, some 2,260 hotspots were detected, compared to 3,771 hotspots found in the same period of last year.
The meeting learned that 66,685 rai (10,670 hectares) of forests in Chiang Mai have been damaged by fires so far this year.
