Wildfires Have Destroyed One-Third Of Small PNG Island, Responders Say

Kaya Selby
RNZ Pacific journalist

Small island villagers in
Papua New Guinea are appealing for international help to
fight wildfires, which they say have burned through
one-third of their land.

As winter turns to spring
under El Niño drought conditions, bushfires are battering
communities all over PNG, with local fire and response teams
often powerless to fight it.

In Manus Province, Lou
Island has battled wildfires for the past week, in what
locals call an “unprecedented” disaster.

Ngenge Sasa,
from Rei village in the island’s north, told RNZ Pacific
that the impact has been devastating.

Speaking from a
high vantage point, he said at least one third of the island
appeared scorched and flat, and that an entire forest
appeared to have vanished.

“It’s a clean sweep,” he
said.

“On the Eastern side … all the trees that we
use for building our houses, the roads and some of the
gardens, all our resources have gone. This is one of the
only forests that all of the island used for sawn
timber.”

He said the fire seemed to have tempered by
around 7am local time, with smoke visible on the southern
end, after it had spread island-wide the day
before.

“It’s the first kind of fire that islanders
have experienced in their life.”

Kireni Sparks-Ngenge,
a fellow coordinator, said locals have relied on whatever
they had lying around to fight the fire, but it was nowhere
near enough.

“Community members have been working
tirelessly, risking their own safety, to try to kill the
fire, but latest reports say that the spread of the fire is
out of their control,” she said.

“We believe that the
best equipment to put out this wildfire would be monsoon
buckets, but have yet to find anyone who has and will deploy
this equipment urgently.

“Other critical support could
include assessing fire boundaries and coordinating
containment lines, and use of high volume water pumps
directly onto active fire.”

Sasa said re-enforcements
from Manus Island arrived yesterday, with firefighters up
until 3am, while locals island-wide kept up their
efforts.

“There’s people from all around Lou Island,
they’re all coming today. Everybody will get one litre, two
litres, five litres of water, and walk up to the mountains
and try to killed the remaining fire now.

“But big
damage has been done to our traditional land. These forests
here were untouched forests from our great grandparents…
now it’s all gone on this side.

“There’s another
mainly garden forest on the Northern side, I think it’s
okay.”

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