KARANGANYAR. Forest fires in Mount Lawu have continued to worsen as flames are getting closer to resident settlements along the Cemoro Sewu trekking route in Magetan, East Java, and highways in areas across Karanganyar, Central Java, reports said on Monday.

Officers of the Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) in Magetan and Karanganyar, together with the Surakarta Forest Management Office (KPH) and Search and Rescue (SAR) personnel, have been striving to extinguish fires with various methods.

BPBD Karanganyar head Nugroho said the flames came from fires on the Post 3 route, which covered Cemoro Sewu and Cemoro Kandang trekking routes, on Saturday evening.

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“On early Sunday, the fires had reached the Post 1 route in Cemoro Sewu, and now [Monday] the fire flames are only around 200 meters away from resident settlements in Cemoro Sewu in Magetan and Cemoro Kandang in Karanganyar,” said Nugroho. He was speaking to journalists from the Cemoro Kandang trekking route.

Nugroho said four fire spots were detected in Karanganyar, in areas behind Post 2 Cemoro Kandang in the Gondosuli area, in public forest parks (Tahura) at Post 2 and 3, and in Jogorogo -- a route to the Cetho Temple.

Separately, BPBD Magetan head Agung Lewis said the agency was focusing its attention on extinguishing fires so that they would not spread to resident settlements.

“Around 100 personnel from park rangers [Jagawana], the BPBD, the Indonesian Military, the National Police, volunteers and local communities have been deployed to control the spread of the fires. For the time being, we are striving to prevent the fires from spreading to resident settlements. Around 50 houses must be immediately rescued from the fire,” said Nugroho.

From observations in the burned forests on Monday morning, hundreds of volunteers from SAR Karanganyar and Magetan, supported by police and military personnel, have continued to extinguish fires. Using eight fire trucks, they sprayed water on burned areas, which were located behind resident settlements.

The officers asked local residents to leave their houses and closed Karanganyar-Magetan routes to speed up fire extinguishing efforts. Many onlookers stopped by the entrance gate of Cemoro Sewu to watch the fire and thick smoke emanating from the forest.

Meanwhile, the Surakarta-chapter of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) and BPBD Surakarta said they had dispatched volunteers and fire trucks to help tame the fires, as well as medical teams.

“We have deployed three fire fighters, including medical teams, to help fire volunteers in Cemoro Sewu and Cemoro Kandang,” said PMI Surakarta spokesperson, Sumartono Hadinoto. (Ganug Nugroho Adi)