Chiang Mai Steps Up Law Enforcement To Reduce Burning.

[Lite Beer]

Chiang Mai steps up law enforcement to reduce burning.
By English News

CHIANG MAI, March 21-Concerned authorities are now tightening measures to control all kinds of burning as this northern city is now clogged with smog which is already affecting the health of local residents.

Deputy Governor Adisorn Kamnerdsiri said the level of haze in the province this morning was rising to the level that residents suffer eye irritation.

He said the province called a meeting of concerned officials from 25 districts and instructed them to closely monitor all kinds of burning and step up law enforcement as currently the level of airborne dust particles is exceeding the safe standard level.

Mr Adisorn said the number of patients suffering respiratory and skin diseases, as well as eye irritation, has also increased.

Although haze in Chiang Mai is not as severe as last year, the deputy governor said, nine hot spots, representing fires seen from space, were detected by the NOAA18 satellite in Thailand's upper North and in neighbouring countries.

He said Tak province was found to have most frequent forest fires with 860 incidents from January 21 until now, followed by 838 fire in Mae Hong Son, 662 in Chiang Mai and 345 in Lampang, damaging about 5,300 rai of forest.

The fires were caused by burning weeds and underbrush in mountainous areas and lighting fire by local residents when searching for forest produce. (MCOT online news).

-- TNA 2013-03-21

[Lite Beer]

AIR QUALITY
Haze worsens in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai authorities held an urgent meeting on Thursday to discuss solutions after thick haze blanketed the downtown area and the concentration of dust particles exceeded safe standards.

Deputy Governor Adisorn Kamnerdsiri said that in many areas on Thursday morning the volume of dust particle exceeded the average, which is set at 120 micrograms/cubic metres.

"At the provincial hall, the level of dust particles is 185 micrograms/cubic metres while at Yupparat School, the level is 210. The poor air quality is already affecting Chiang Mai people. Therefore, the authorities concerned, among them the chiefs of 25 districts met this morning via teleconference to find way to solve the problems," he said.

Every district authority was ordered to strengthen screening and also check people visiting the forests to prevent any building of fires. Anyone found building a fire would be arrested, the deputy governor said.

The authorities would urgently disseminate information to local residents so that they would not do anything that would worsen the haze situation.

He said that between February 18 and March 20, there were reports of 378 bush fires in 23 districts, damaging 4,411.5 rai of land.

Most of the bush fires occurred in Chiang Dao district (63) and followed by Mae On district (55), he said, adding that since February 1, a total of 36,160 people have been affected by the haze.

-- The Nation 2013-03-21

[Thailand]

There appears to be zero law enforcement in relation to burning so stepping it up will not be much of a leap!

[Kitbaikitmah]

From the centre of chaing mai you can't see doi supthep.

Doi Supthet is a bloody mountain with chiang mai at its base..

Bugger this, I 'm off to Singapore till it rains.

Chin chin chaps

[HullyGully]

Will never change until the Thai Government enforces the law

So. each year same same

[Buckaroo]

Will never change until the Thai Government enforces the law

So. each year same same

I think you will find that it is the police that have to enforce the law, it's the governments that make the laws. The governments could make all lazy police unemployed and then employ police that actually want to do a good job though. Edited March 21, 2013 by Buckaroo

[Noistar]

There appears to be zero law enforcement in relation to burning so stepping it up will not be much of a leap!

seems to be the same with all Thai laws. The Government seems scared to apply them.

It's difficult for people from first-world countries, to understand the way second-world countries work.

[tomyumchai]

having done 10,000km around the north west since dec i was very shocked at the amount of fires at the sides of the roads, some spread well into the surrounding countryside. are these started by discarded cigarettes?

[MESmith]

There appears to be zero law enforcement in relation to burning so stepping it up will not be much of a leap!

seems to be the same with all Thai laws. The Government seems scared to apply them.

It's difficult for people from first-world countries, to understand the way second-world countries work.

"Second-world" there's another step up

[MESmith]

having done 10,000km around the north west since dec i was very shocked at the amount of fires at the sides of the roads, some spread well into the surrounding countryside. are these started by discarded cigarettes?

road side fires tend to be started by govt employees

[chiangmaicharlies]

Same as most other years - though today's visibility worse than I can remember

[khaowong1]

This happens this same time every year.. so what's new?

[Pui]

Today I drove from Doi Lang (Fang) to Chiang Dao and then on to Chiang Mai. There are highly visible people at the side of the roads stating fires. They are not in any way hiding. Why are they not being arrested? Never mind some head honcho's having another meeting.

There are signs all the way up the road telling them not to start fires. There are people all the way up the road starting fires. Arrest them!!!

Edited March 21, 2013 by Pui

[jsflynn603]

"Deputy Governor Adisorn Kamnerdsiri said the level of haze in the
province this morning was rising to the level that residents suffer eye
irritation."

Translation into plain English:

Deputy Governor Adisorn Kamnerdisir said the level of haze in the province

this morning was rising to the level that numerous people were dying in hospitals due

to respiratory problems, and their eyes were irritated too.

C'mon....is this just gross denial, or stupidity?

And this:

"The fires were caused by burning weeds and underbrush in mountainous
areas and lighting fire by local residents when searching for forest
produce. (MCOT online news)."

Searching? Uh, what do they need extra light?

What insane rubbish. The fires are deliberately started by locals in a serial manner. A week after an area is burned many saleable products are created, bamboo shoots, certain mushrooms that react to the fire (this occurs in the Western US also where edible morel mushrooms fruit after a fire) and other herbaceaous products. So if you burn an area every three or four days, in a week or two you will find a bounty of edible and saleable products. Locals start the fires and then continue to start them at intervals that suit their harvest schedule.

99%+ of the fires are set intentionally and the authorities know this.

It is this way in parts of China, Burma, and other surrounding countries and has been this way for centuries and with this sort of dumb denial it will be this way for centuries to come.

As a rough guess I'll bet that between 300 and 1200 people die from this sort of burning each year, though none die from eye irritation.

See: http://ia600401.us.archive.org/11/items/VE-IMG-19873/seasia_amo_28feb05.jpg

For a satellite image of fires in SE Asia. Here there are significant forest fires too, but it is apparent from images like these that most of the burning is intentional. Even the forest understory has changed to facilitate this sort of burning. We go through this every year--year after year. Well, ostriches really do not hide their heads in the ground, but clearly Thai authorities do.

Edited March 21, 2013 by jsflynn603

[uptheos]

Today I drove from Doi Lang (Fang) to Chiang Dao and then on to Chiang Mai. There are highly visible people at the side of the roads stating fires. They are not in any way hiding. Why are they not being arrested? Never mind some head honcho's having another meeting.

There are signs all the way up the road telling them not to start fires. There are people all the way up the road starting fires. Arrest them!!!

Look, if you arrest someone you have to do a bit of work, like write a report, take the person to jail, appear before a judge etc.........just looking at these few things, you know it's not going to happen. It's OK arresting people in the cool season, but bugger arresting them when it starts to get hot, that really does make it hard work!

Edited March 21, 2013 by uptheos

[ableguy]

having done 10,000km around the north west since dec i was very shocked at the amount of fires at the sides of the roads, some spread well into the surrounding countryside. are these started by discarded cigarettes?

God grow up man

[MESmith]

Today I drove from Doi Lang (Fang) to Chiang Dao and then on to Chiang Mai. There are highly visible people at the side of the roads stating fires. They are not in any way hiding. Why are they not being arrested? Never mind some head honcho's having another meeting.

There are signs all the way up the road telling them not to start fires. There are people all the way up the road starting fires. Arrest them!!!

Look, if you arrest someone you have to do a bit of work, like write a report, take the person to jail, appear before a judge etc.........just looking at these few things, you know it's not going to happen. It's OK arresting people in the cool season, but bugger arresting them when it starts to get hot, that really does make it hard work!

Arrest & then release on bail, to continue committing the crime ......

Same with most crimes here

[uptheos]

Today I drove from Doi Lang (Fang) to Chiang Dao and then on to Chiang Mai. There are highly visible people at the side of the roads stating fires. They are not in any way hiding. Why are they not being arrested? Never mind some head honcho's having another meeting.

There are signs all the way up the road telling them not to start fires. There are people all the way up the road starting fires. Arrest them!!!

Look, if you arrest someone you have to do a bit of work, like write a report, take the person to jail, appear before a judge etc.........just looking at these few things, you know it's not going to happen. It's OK arresting people in the cool season, but bugger arresting them when it starts to get hot, that really does make it hard work!

Arrest & then release on bail, to continue committing the crime ......

Same with most crimes here

On the spot bail = Tea Money?

Edited March 21, 2013 by uptheos

[belg]

thainess means : it comes from laos or myanmar or cambodia, not from us... cannot do anything (best in the world for the last one)

[rotorbreeze]

Thailand is not the only country that smoke fills the air...many years as support fire fighting with a helicopter I have seen lots of smoke, Edmonton in mid summer has it share of smoke caused by fires started by lighting strikes, the pine-beetle that distrosys forests and all left is the fuel needed to burn, dead trees, a lighting strike and boom the fire starts, in early years in Northern Canada the temperatures kill the pine-beetle, now with climate change this does not occur and the spread of the pine-beetle is a major cause of dead trees, thus more fuel for summer fires.

Education on recycling rice stocks...the major cause of smoke in Chaing Mai...I believe.

Months ago outside my sorts club tennis court, I was sickened by the use burning used bicycle tires to start the local vendors portable cooking units! A terrible smell surrounded the tennis courts! God how stupid, use paper. Thai people have no excuse for not thinking of the out come of such a way of starting their portable charcoal barbaques.

I do feel how helpless the people of Chang Mai have little control with this terrible seasonal event....

[hellodolly]

Having lived in a area in Canada where they do not have the burning off of fields I can safely tell you that the smoke from near by forest fires can get very bad.

Here in South East Asia we live in countries that fights forest fires by sending out a fire fighter with a garden hose and no place to hook it up to. What do people expect.

Some how two years ago when we had all the rain and no smoke I tend to think the fields still got burned off but there was no forest fires to add to the problem.

I am not defending the burning off of fields I am just pointing out that stopping them will still not solve the problem.

[orang37]

The fires are deliberately started by locals in a serial manner. A week after an area is burned many saleable products are created, bamboo shoots, certain mushrooms that react to the fire (this occurs in the Western US also where edible morel mushrooms fruit after a fire) and other herbaceaous products. So if you burn an area every three or four days, in a week or two you will find a bounty of edible and saleable products. Locals start the fires and then continue to start them at intervals that suit their harvest schedule.

I do not believe that in the hot-dry, rainless, season, anything is going to sprout up a week after an area is burned ! And, the idea that if you burn the same area every three or four days you will produce a "bounty" in a few weeks, is truly absurd. The only "bounty" you'll get is probably being bludgeoned by your wife, and/or neighbors, for wasting your time, matches, and whatever flammable (triple-distilled lao khao ?), trying to burn ashes.

The higher-altitude burning (often by non-Thai ethnic peoples, i.e., "hill tribes") is done to produce mushrooms which are harvested after, or in the late, rainy season. The mushrooms are a "cash crop," quite important to those higher-altitude groups that are often living much of the year in "subsistence mode:" if, they have stopped growing opium.

Were you, by any chance, today: somewhere in Lanna, in direct sun, without a hat on for many hours, while breathing deeply, and, perhaps unwittingly dehydrated ?

That could account for these delusions.

~o:37;

[super22k]

I have a solution. Start the Songran three weeks earlier and they can wash the Mossies away.

[connda]

There is no enforcement.
I drove back roads through Lamphun a couple of days ago while on a motorcycle road trip. The trip took me through the Thanon Thong Chai and Khun Tan Mountain ranges. What I saw was a lot of was burning that was started on the side of the roads. It's as though people simply drive along, spray accelerate at intervals along the back roads, light them on fire, and let the wind do the rest. There were simply dozens of these spot fires that looked to have been set right along the road. Not only is there no enforcement, there is nobody attempting to put the fires out. In the US, we have fire fighter specifically employed to fight forest fires during the summer fire season. They don't look like they have anything like that here. No attempt to put the fires out. Hell, all they would have to do is send out water trucks to put out the road side spot fires and they could probably eliminate 25% of this 'haze'. But they don't so we continue to just have a lot of smoky, hot air -- just like what comes out of virtually every politician's mouth.

Edited March 21, 2013 by connda

[connda]

Today I drove from Doi Lang (Fang) to Chiang Dao and then on to Chiang Mai. There are highly visible people at the side of the roads stating fires. They are not in any way hiding. Why are they not being arrested? Never mind some head honcho's having another meeting.

There are signs all the way up the road telling them not to start fires. There are people all the way up the road starting fires. Arrest them!!!

+1 Agreed.

[shroomer]

Nothing will happen with enforcement until independent police squads are set up to tackle the issue. Police living in a village or community will do very little to prevent / prosecute burning

because they do not want to upset the locals where they live.

With a bit of luck tourists will leave in droves, and then hopefully when businesses are screaming about lost revenue, maybe something will be done.

Until some of these idiots who burn are given severe jail sentences to set an example to the rest, nothing will change.

[Beetlejuice]

Today I drove from Doi Lang (Fang) to Chiang Dao and then on to Chiang Mai. There are highly visible people at the side of the roads stating fires. They are not in any way hiding. Why are they not being arrested? Never mind some head honcho's having another meeting.

There are signs all the way up the road telling them not to start fires. There are people all the way up the road starting fires. Arrest them!!!

Look, if you arrest someone you have to do a bit of work, like write a report, take the person to jail, appear before a judge etc.........just looking at these few things, you know it's not going to happen. It's OK arresting people in the cool season, but bugger arresting them when it starts to get hot, that really does make it hard work!

Arrest & then release on bail, to continue committing the crime ......

Same with most crimes here

On the spot bail = Tea Money?

The police in my area only drink coffee.

Same in my area. People openly lighting fires all over the place and never a law enforcement officer in sight. Has been that way since I lived here.

Chiang Mai steps up law enforcement to reduce burning. Seeing will be believing. cough, cough, excuse me.

[bristolgeoff]

the smog will happen again and again until the thais find a better way to stop the burning.

[Loptr]

There appears to be zero law enforcement in relation to burning so stepping it up will not be much of a leap!

seems to be the same with all Thai laws. The Government seems scared to apply them.

It's difficult for people from first-world countries, to understand the way second-world countries work.

In don't know, but having visited and worked in many 2nd and 3rd world countries, Thailand is the only one I know of where the government will pass a law, then ask a minority segment of the population whether it's ok to enforce that law or not.

[Nobelcat]

I find this funny. The day this gets published is the day that I see the worse air quality in Chiang Mai. And a big fire was burning here: http://goo.gl/maps/GPke8 . You can see the lovely view we had for a few hours yesterday.