Authorities Failing To Stop Lighting Of Fires In The North

[george]

Authorities failing to stop lighting of fires

CHIANG MAI: -- The smog problem in the North is worsening as a result of the authorities' failure to control man-made fires in forest areas, Pollution Control Department director-general Suphat Wangwong-watthana said yesterday.

Citing firefighters' reports from Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son and west Kanchanaburi, Suphat said more fires set by villagers had been discovered following an easing in the smog level earlier last week.

"The rise shows that the villagers have not cooperated with the authorities," he said, but did not mention the authorities' failure to enforce fire-control precautions in areas under their jurisdi ction.

Suphat said satellite images showed that there were now 593 so-called "hotspots" in Thailand, 318 of which were in the North. Of these 318, 52 were in Mae Hong Son.

There were a total of 1,243 hotspots in Southeast Asia.

The total number of hotspots has risen rapidly from 387 a few weeks ago, especially in Mae Hong Son, where there were earlier just 27.

Deputy Prime Minister and Social Development and Human Security Minister Paiboon Watanasiritham called an urgent meeting to discuss the smog problem today following an increase in the air pollution index in four key provinces: from 152 to 169 in Mae Hong Son, from 124 to 136 in Chiang Mai, from 100 to 106 in Lampang and from 117 to 121 in Chiang Rai.

An operations centre was set up in Mae Hong Son yesterday to deal with the smog problem, which had affected the province's tourism industry and public health.

Provincial governor Direk Konkleep said 10 THAI flights and nine Nok Air flights between Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai had been cancelled, and that more than 16,000 people in the province had suffered respiratory problems.

Meanwhile, weeks after the smog problem began, the Royal Forestry Department yesterday issued a number of safety and precautionary measures to cope with wildfires in the provinces.

--The Nation 2007-03-19

[cloudhopper]

SSDD...

[blam]

Umm, I am sorry if I sound like a dumb @ss here, but isn't that the areas where they grew all that corn for gasohol? What are they supposed to do with all those millions of tons of chaff? Some people actually knew this was coming a couple of years ago.

Also, they were growing that fake rice to cover the hillsides where they grew the corn last year, what in the holy blazes were they supposed to do with ALL THAT dead material when it grew itself out?

Northern Thailand has been a smoke pit this time of year every year for the last 50 years, ever since they started farming hom mali. Now it's corn and fake rice. Again, <deleted> were they supposed to do with the 10,000 % of added left-over chaff? Compost it? Eat it? Sell it? Or shove it in the face of Chiang Mai and all the whining farangs(?) and forget about it. They didn't make that much money from it anyway.

Government management brilliance at work again. This time it's going to take a little time to pin the tail on the donkey. People just want to deal with the smoke, and forget about where the fire came from in the first place. Masterpiece of Thai planning. Why do other people see this stuff coming, and the Thai MPs just tell you the reasons it won't?

Another version you may not of thought of? Corruption at its finest rules again. This IS Thailand.

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

They have signs hanging over the road in at least one place in Chiang Mai telling people not to burn or else they would be subject to a 2,000 baht fine and a month in jail. Isn't that enough?

[surfthai]

Umm, I am sorry if I sound like a dumb @ss here, but isn't that the areas where they grew all that corn for gasohol? What are they supposed to do with all those millions of tons of chaff? Some people actually knew this was coming a couple of years ago.

Also, they were growing that fake rice to cover the hillsides where they grew the corn last year, what in the holy blazes were they supposed to do with ALL THAT dead material when it grew itself out?

Northern Thailand has been a smoke pit this time of year every year for the last 50 years, ever since they started farming hom mali. Now it's corn and fake rice. Again, <deleted> were they supposed to do with the 10,000 % of added left-over chaff? Compost it? Eat it? Sell it? Or shove it in the face of Chiang Mai and all the whining farangs(?) and forget about it. They didn't make that much money from it anyway.

Government management brilliance at work again. This time it's going to take a little time to pin the tail on the donkey. People just want to deal with the smoke, and forget about where the fire came from in the first place. Masterpiece of Thai planning. Why do other people see this stuff coming, and the Thai MPs just tell you the reasons it won't?

Another version you may not of thought of? Corruption at its finest rules again. This IS Thailand.

Can't argue with that. Last visa run in October to Mae Sai, there was nothing but corn growing in the mountains around Chiang Rai. Thousands of square kilometers of it. What do they do with the stalks> burn em. I think that it has been a way of life for them with rice farming for a long long time. Really, what else can they do with the trash from the heavy government sponsored agriculture? You can't make charcoal from it, and it costs too much to truck out. What is the Thai answer for this one? I guess right now it's just smog. They didn't think about that at all obviously.

[chownah]

Northern Thailand has been a smoke pit this time of year every year for the last 50 years, ever since they started farming hom mali. Now it's corn and fake rice. Again, <deleted> were they supposed to do with the 10,000 % of added left-over chaff? Compost it? Eat it? Sell it? Or shove it in the face of Chiang Mai and all the whining farangs(?) and forget about it. They didn't make that much money from it anyway.

What is this "fake rice" you talk about?

The leftover chaff can be plowed into the soil which will benefit the soil.

Chownah

[blam]

Tall grass that looks identical to rice without stalks, grown to maintain the steep muddy hillsides after they realized that they couldn't just leave the harvested corn plants to mold in the ground year after year. They planted it everywhere they grew corn on the slopes last year. All along the sides of the steep river valley canyons too, like the Mae Kok, from just outside of Chiang Rai, all the way to Tha Thon and beyond. Check your map, it's a long way.

Turning brown tall grass into the soil on a steep hillside to prepare for the next corn planting would be a massive undertaking. The easy answer: burn it, of course, then turn it under. That's the way they have always done it, and that's the way they do it now. Rice farmers and the hill tribe's swidden agriculture, same same, they just burn it. Now, of course, there is far too much of it. Nobody ever thought about the smog. Especially not the head honchos pushing gasohol.

On the front page of the BK Post newspaper yesterday, you read first about the terrible smog of course, and in the very next article you read about how the price of gasohol had dropped to 2.75 Baht cheaper than regular benzine. Nice bit of irony there.

I live in Phuket now, been here for 2 years, but lived and owned homes in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai for 18 yrs before moving here.

[Cyberstar]

Tall grass that looks identical to rice without stalks, grown to maintain the steep muddy hillsides after they realized that they couldn't just leave the harvested corn plants to mold in the ground year after year. They planted it everywhere they grew corn on the slopes last year. All along the sides of the steep river valley canyons too, like the Mae Kok, from just outside of Chiang Rai, all the way to Tha Thon and beyond. Check your map, it's a long way.

Turning brown tall grass into the soil on a steep hillside to prepare for the next corn planting would be a massive undertaking. The easy answer: burn it, of course, then turn it under. That's the way they have always done it, and that's the way they do it now. Rice farmers and the hill tribe's swidden agriculture, same same, they just burn it. Now, of course, there is far too much of it.

Thanks. Exellent barebone info, pinpointing one cause of the kind that could be properly taken care of by Thai authorities --- if they did bother to dare.

[Sojourner]

Burning the stalks and chaff from farming is one thing but most of the hot spots now showing on the NASA satellite photos are brush fires and forest fires throughout the mountain ranges. Just traveling back and forth from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai we see many fires burning in areas impossible to farm. I understand the farmer's needs to prepare for the next planting but have no idea why the forest needs to be burned every year too.

[mouse]

After reading this topic headline the first time, I went outside and saw at least 5 fires in yards to burn refuse. I contacted the Village Chief (Uncle Pong) and pointed it out to him and explained the position of the government as I underwstood it in online articles. Since then, we get daily announcements over the speaker system and I have noticed that the burning seems to have totally stopped for the time being, except for the one funeral that took place yesterday.

Edited March 20, 2007 by mouse

[ColPyat]

I understand the farmer's needs to prepare for the next planting but have no idea why the forest needs to be burned every year too.

The forest burns by itself most years. This dry season is particular dry, so you have to count with more fires. This is part of nature. Forests are adapted to regular fires, it helps rejuvenating the forest.

You just will have to live with the smog and haze, it'll be over in the rain season.

[ColPyat]

and pointed it out to him and explained the position of the government as I underwstood it in online articles.

The position of the government is often only a knee jerk reaction, and mostly not in favor of the farmers.

In times of such a dry season it is very important to get rid of the tall dry grass, and the only practical solution is by burning.

If this grass is left standing it is an open invitation for fires. Burning the grass in controlled fires is the best and only protection against wild fires. Unless the government sends an army of heavy equipment that helps farmers getting rid of the grass, there is no other option.