Jakarta, Aug. 12 -- Indonesia's Minister of Forestry Raja Juli Antoni credited the country's success in reducing forest and land fires to the effective use of meteorological technology and the synergy between air and land operations.

"The decline in the area of land burned over the past eight years is proof of the success of this comprehensive strategy," he said during a coordination meeting on wildfire management in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Citing ministry data, Antoni noted that Indonesia recorded 1.8 million hectares of burned land in 2015, 1 million hectares in 2019, and only around 600,000 hectares in 2023. Between January and August this year, just 8,955 hectares had burned nationwide.

Wildfire cases were reported in provinces includi...