Jakarta on Fire

Up to 1970s, Jakarta was known as a big village. But now with high skyscraper buildings scattered around surrounded by modern suburbs, it becomes a big metropolitan. However, the densely populated slums in peripheral areas remain untouched mainly alongside rivers, unused state lands, and railways. 

The huts and small illegal houses which pack together in cluster giving no space between one another are prone to unhealthy environment and more fatally big fires. The latter takes toll of the huge amount of citizens’ properties and sometimes human life. The fire incident is caused mainly by an electric short circuit and by stove explosion in the second place.

Statistically, two or three fires damage Jakarta every day, especially at those highly populated slums such as Tambora in West Jakarta, Tanah Abang and Bendungan Hilir in Central Jakarta. Since January to July 2012, there have been around 560 cases of fires raging over various parts of the city taking toll of 30 human lives.

Just to take for example, the fire incident in Tambora, 28 July 2012 devastated 500 houses making at least 1,400 people were homeless. Amazingly, no longer than 10 days after, the fire raged again the area, where 75 houses were destroyed and 400 people homeless. Just two days before, in Bendungan Hilir fire destroyed more than 100 houses causing 500 people homeless. The lesson was never learned.

Most people living in the slum areas have migrated from outside the city illegally occupying the areas. They build the rudimentary huts with fire-prone materials, barely any alley to cross and no water supply in or close to the site. Most of the electrical installations in the shelters do not meet with the standard. The illegal electricity conjunction, that people connect from the electric lines, aggravates the condition.

The danger of fire is imminent as most people there are reckless about such danger that haunts them. It is almost impossible to extinguish the fire if it happens as not enough water available and no fire-truck can approach the spot. Within a short time, the flame will propagate to the whole area fiercely consuming everything around.

But, this is not the only story. Business centers and factories with complete fire extinguishers are occasionally vulnerable to fire. The last incident was on August 12, just four days after the second Tambora’s fire, a total of 27 stalls at Harco Glodok, in the Chinese town were combusted.

To cope with the electrical short circuit hazard, PLN together with the electric contractor associations have to intensively socialize people to use proper and standardized electrical equipment and re-check regularly the condition of electric installation. More importantly, PLN should selectively supply the power to fire-vulnerable huts and houses and refuse to do so especially for illegal shelters.

Does the fire become Jakarta everlasting problem?

Jakarta, the Greenery Area?

If you lived in Jakarta a couple of decades ago, you experienced as living in a big village.  There was a movie entitled "Big Village" telling the story about life in Jakarta on those days. Jakarta indeed had been known as a big village which gradually changed into a big metropolitan with many skyscrapers and concrete blocks. Now Jakarta is getting hotter and more polluted due to the increase in the number of vehicles moving around and the lack of greenery areas in the city. 

The city government is planning the development of city forest around 30% of the total Jakarta area. However, the target seems too optimistic because the greenery area dwindled drastically from 27%  in the early 1960s to only 9.5% as of today, making Jakarta become barren. Instead of having a city forest, we get a forest of concrete blocks. What amazing development!

 Plants are necessary for improving air quality through the process of photosynthesis, which converts carbon dioxide into oxygen. Every one hectare of greenery area can convert 3.7 tons of CO2 – resulting from human activities, industry, and vehicles – to become 2 tons of O2.

Today, the city forest is prevailing in 14 locations including city forest of Kemayoran, Halim Perdana Kusuma, Pondok Kelapa, Cijantung, Srengseng, and the University of Indonesia. The activities of planting more trees in those locations last year were mainly handled by privates sectors through the program of one man one tree. This program was launched after the city government was only able to allocate a meager budget for such activities. 

An exemplary successful model of the man-made forest of 6.3 hectares at Kemayoran developed starting four years ago. Various trees of 1,700 species have grown up well and now become the den for around 90 species of birds. It becomes the city lungs producing fresh air for people living in the nearby areas and making their living condition become healthier. Other public parks recently developed are Taman Menteng and Taman Mahakam which changes the landscape a lot for the better. 

The officials of the city park department have set the plan to cultivate more rare and exotic plants in the whole city forests. We are happy with that planning and hope that it will be seriously implemented. We appreciate the sidewalk ornamental plant traders in Jakarta. They make the street where they sell their goods to become tidier, greenery and beautiful. 

 Due to the worsening condition of the ecosystem in the coast of  Jakarta, some of the activist groups planted seedlings of mangrove in a belt along the coast which in turn might hamper the coastal erosion in North Jakarta. As to the present condition, not only the erosion of the coast has taken place for years, the intrusion of seawater has even reached the area around the National Monument.

The city government hopes that the people movement might gain two results in at once: Jakarta is more greenery and coastal erosion is reduced. But what is more important in such an activity is that people are taught to be more aware of maintaining good ecosystem and more careful in improving the environmental condition.

Some people criticized the City Park Department in their efforts to create new forest had put stress more to the aspect of aesthetic rather than their effects on the environment. They pointed out the plantation of some palm trees, which they claimed the trees absorb too much water for themselves. We are, however,  in the opinion of the contrary. Many of the plant species cultivated along the street do not meet the esthetical aspect at all. 

The Department of City Park still has to pay more attention to it. Albeit they contribute less for the greenery spaces, the palm tree, for example,  is able to give the impression of tropical exotics which represents Indonesian image as a country located along the equator.  Maybe we can take the lessons from the big cities located in the similar condition such as Singapore, Honolulu, Los Angelos or the cities along the Mediterranean.