Jakarta, Oct. 28 -- Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) affirmed that firefighting personnel and equipment remain on standby to mitigate the emergence of new hotspots amid ongoing forest and land fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

"We are certainly keeping both personnel and equipment on standby in the districts and cities where fires have occurred," Acting Head of the BNPB's Disaster Data, Information, and Communication Center Berton SP Panjaitan said during a virtual press conference on Wednesday.

Berton added that the standby personnel are deployed across several provinces, including 16,387 personnel in Central Kalimantan, 14,458 in West Kalimantan, 12,287 in South Sumatra, and 7,927 in South Kalimantan.

In addition...