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The Indonesian police have already turned over the result of their investigation to the Environment Ministry pointing to two Malaysian-owned firms as having started the forest fire in Sumatra, triggering heavy smog in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.
According to the police, the two Malaysian firms were part of eight firms earlier identified by the ministry as responsible for burning forest to clear land in Riau province, causing smoke haze and air pollution that put the lives of people at risk.
The two Malaysian-run plantations were identified as PT Lagam Inti Hibrida and PT Bumi Reksa Nusa Sejati operating in Pelalawan and Indragiri Hilir regencies in the province.
"We won't press ahead with further legal proceedings against the firms. The investigation results have been handed over to the environment ministry as it has its own investigators (on environmental crimes)," Riau Police Spokesperson Hermansyah said on Monday in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru.
He added that the ministry could use the investigation results in the filing of lawsuit against the firms.
"We will press ahead with legal proceedings in courts after we have enough supporting data. In the meantime, we will continue to coordinate with the Riau police and the prosecutor's office handling the investigation," Indonesian Environment Minister Balthazar Kambuaya said.
He said that his ministry would also coordinate with the Malaysian environment ministry to discuss measures that would prevent the recurrence of such a disaster in the future.
Meanwhile, operations to put out the fire have been stepped up in Riau province as more areas with raging fires have been found in the province.
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) reported that based on images sent by NOAA 18 satellite as of Monday, fires have been located in 265 areas in the province.
The number of affected areas identified by the satellite has been fluctuating but the fires have been going on for almost a week already.
Efforts to extinguish the fires included spraying water from the air as well as the use of water cannons on the ground.
Three helicopters were used to carry out water bombing in the affected areas. They have been flying up to 37 sorties today.
Efforts to incite artificial rain were also carried out by Casa 212 rainmaker and the air force C-130 Hercules that poured NaCl on clouds in several flight sorties," BNPB Spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told Xinhua.
Operations on the ground were conducted by troops, police and forest fire-fighting volunteers.
Nugroho said earlier that 80 percent of the fire occurred in plantations run by Malaysian-owned firms and the remaining 20 percent occurred in the forest.
The Indonesian Air Force has assigned ten aircraft to the forest fire extinguishing operation in Riau. The government has also allocated some 25 billion rupiah (about 2.5 million U.S. dollars) to finance the operation.
The BNPB does not set a specific date on when the fire-fighting operations would end.
