Impacts of rainfall on peat fire during the dry season and wet dry season on degraded tropical peatland in South Sumatra, Indonesia

Abstract

Peat fires on cleared and drained tropical peatlands continue to cause tremendous damage to their ecological functions, contribute to global warming, and reduce in health of local communities, where the fire incidents in 2019 and 2020 correlated with weather conditions. The research aims to determine and clarify the correlation between rainfall dynamics and the occurrence and severity of peat fires in degraded tropical peatlands in South Sumatra, Indonesia. The research was conducted by recording rainfall Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics (BMKG) data, surface and peat fuel, and peat fire area primer data from 2019 to 2020. The results show that two types of weather correlate with the size of the burned area in the Ogan Komering Ilir (OKI) regency. Temporal rainfall distribution, quantity, and duration a determining factor for the transition of surface fires to peat fires, especially in the role they play in the hydrology and moisture conditions of peat and surface fuels. This study will present the effect of rainfall in the dry and wet dry seasons on peatland fires and the extent of peat fires that occurred in two years.