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View all search resultsFilling the void: Mothers, volunteers step up to fight wildfire
Local volunteers are eager to help put out forest fires across the country, but some have received little to no support or resources necessary to perform their duty.
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Members of the all-women The Power of Mama (TPoM) volunteer firefighting team and soldiers work on Sept. 27 in a peatland fire area near Tanjungpura village, Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan. Indonesia has been battling fires for weeks in parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra, sending suffocating haze across the islands and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. (AFP/Muffidz Masum)
N
ur Aida, 38, has spent much of her time this year donning firefighting gear to put out peatland fires in her forested Pematang Gadung village, Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan.
Brushing aside stereotypes defining motherhood, she brings herself with other mothers on motorcycles to brave through thick haze shrouding her village to reach isolated areas and patrol potential blazes or campaigning against slash-and-burn agricultural practices.
“I am afraid and anxious,” Aida told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, “but I feel that it is a calling for me to participate in a firefighting operation.”
Growing up in Pematang Gadung, around 500 kilometers south of the provincial capital of Pontianak, she witnessed multiple fire episodes in her village but was unable to do much to curb the recurring haze from burning peatland in the area.
But now she is one of the 143 members of the Power of Mama (TPoM), a women-led fire brigade spread across 10 villages in Ketapang, first established in 2022 with the support of conservation group International Animal Rescue (IAR).
Some of the volunteer members, including Aida, have received technical firefighting training from the Forestry Ministry’s fire brigade Manggala Agni, allowing these women to assist authorities in extinguishing small-scale blazes.
“Lately, we’ve been focusing more on containing the blazes instead of just patrolling,” Aida said. “I’ve engaged in 10 separate fire operations, wearing full safety gear.”
