Villages have a very important and strategic role in forest and land fire early prevention, especially villages located in areas around peatlands.

Every village is authorized to carry out forest and land fire prevention because environmental disaster may hinder the village economic and social resilience.

One of the environmental disasters is forest and land fires, that will potentially disrupting economic activities and impairing public health. "Regardless of safe condition, because lately it has been raining almost every day, we remain vigilant and carry out daily patrol on forest and land fires," said Babirah Village Head, Julam Effendi.

With KMP’s assistance, Babirah village is now has fire post in the village. The post is used by the fire fighters to store their logistics, equipment and as a meeting point. "Our village fire post is fully assisted and supported by Katingan Mentaya Project. Our community-based fire fighters do the forest patrol with Katingan Mentaya Project team for 4 months in a year, from July to October," he continued. “Our fire fighters team dispatches 3 personnel per neighborhood unit each day. In addition to the forest and land fire patrol, the community-based fire fighters also make firebreaks, drill wells and maintain them. Prevention is very important, when there’s fire, we are all in the village will be the first affected by the haze from forest and land fire," said Julam.