Analysis of Vulnerability Level to the Forest and Land Fire Hazard in Ogan Komering Ilir Regency

Ogan Komering Ilir Regency is one of the areas that experienced sever forest fires in 2015. The fire occurred because of the El Nino phenomenon which made the weather conditions dry out and prolonged the dry season. Also, it was caused by forest illegal burning and peatlands to open new land for plantations. According to the regional board of disaster management, known as BPBD data of OKI regency, around 316, 697 Ha of forest land were affected by forest fires. This causes material and immaterial losses to the local community. One of the important aspects of disaster mitigation is an assessment of the vulnerability of potential disaster-prone areas. The purposes of this paper is to determine the level of forest fire disaster vulnerability in the OKI regency to assist in disaster mitigation and recommendations for regional spatial development. The vulnerability assessment used in this study is based on the regulation of the head of the Indonesian national board of disaster management No.2 of 2012 concerning General Guidelines for Indonesian Disaster Risk Assessment. The assessment uses 2 parameters: economic and environmental vulnerability. The method used us weight calculation based on each parameter and data is processed using GIS. Based on the analysis result, a quite high fire potential is in: peatlands areas, forest fire-prones areas, and/or peat swamp forest fires, which covers the area of Kayuagung, Sungai Menang, Cengal, Tulung Selapan, Air Sugihan, Pedamaran Timur, Pedamaran, Pampangan, Pangkalan, Lampam, Lempuing, Lempuing Jaya, Mesuji, Mesuji, Makmur and Mesuji Raya District.

I. Introduction

Indonesia experienced a very severe forest fire disaster in 2015. This was caused by the El Nino phenomenon which caused drought and the lengthy dry season. According to BNPB, the financial loss caused by forest fires (June - October 2015) is up to IDR 221 trillion. The area of land and forest burned and exposed to smoke covers 2.6 million hectares. As large as 33% of the area affected peatlands (869,754 Ha) and an area of 316,697 Ha in Ogan Komering Ilir (OKI) regency. Based on the data since 2012, Ogan Komering Ilir Regency's history of the forest and land fires repeated every year and continued to increase. Besides natural factors, human factors also caused forest and land fires in OKI Regency, which is illegal burning aimed to open a new land.