New tool to predict fire risks unveiled as Indonesia's dry season takes hold

By Beh Lih Yi JAKARTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A map using satellite technology to warn of fire risks aims at helping Southeast Asian governments better deploy their resources to combat raging blazes, which cloak the region in haze every year, an expert on forest fires said on Tuesday. Slash-and-burn agriculture, much of it clearing land for palm oil crops, blanketed Singapore, Malaysia and northern Indonesia in a choking "haze" for months last year. "We expect the Fire Risk Map to help go