I WAS flipping channels on Sunday evening when my attention caught pictures showing nothing but smog. In amongst the gloom and grime I could distinctly make out the outline of men working in pairs shooting jets of water into the ground. From amidst the smoke and ash came out the figure of Malaysian firemen with their distinctive orange fire suit emblazoned proudly with the word BOMBA.

It was a locally-made documentary shown on Discovery Channel featuring firemen from the Malaysian fire brigade who volunteered to fight peat forest fire conflagration in Sumatera back in 1997. Under great strain, not to mention mental and physical stresses, the team exposed themselves to great duress putting out fires that flared from under the very feet they stood. What they were fighting were peat fires that raged underground whose tell-tale signs were acrid and poisonous smoke that singed the soil. The hardworking and brave firefighters stuck to their seemingly insurmountable tasks at great risk to their health.

The excellent documentary showed clearly how the Malaysian fire-fighters were driven to total exhaustion and it was with great providence that the climatic elements came together to bring welcome thunderstorms. In the end it was this manna from heaven that doused the fires for good.

Their presence there was Malaysia’s way of lending a neighbourly hand to Indonesia in their hour of need. Altruism however was tampered by the fact that some of the fires originated from oil palm estate land owned by Malaysian – and Singaporean – plantation concerns. Operating in the republic exposed these companies to the peculiar habit of their citizens who do not quite have the same respect for individual property rights or border delineation the way we do this side of the Melaka Straits. Local farmers think nothing of trespassing into such lands and adopt slash and burn traditional agriculture methods to eke out a living off the land, even though it is not legally in their possession.

It is now 2013 and the firestorm is back. If you are Malaysian or Singaporean, you do not need reminding that haze and smog is keeping you indoors very much against your will. This state of discomfort has been rearing its ugly head for almost a week now and there appears to be no respiratory respite in sight.

This time the fires are in Riau and the south-westerly winds are blowing the smog right smack in our direction. Singapore and Johor suffered the full brunt of this aerial assault first. Now it has spread further north to Melaka and Selangor.

ALL FIRED UP

The Island republic dispensed with any diplomatic niceties by taking the Indonesians to task – even if there was the possibility that the fires originated from plantations owned by some of their own investors. Curiously, the riposte from the Indonesians was far from apologetic. On the other hand it appeared unrepentant when a senior minister told the Singaporeans not to complain! Really, how unneighbourly can one get? But thankfully this hot-headed response turned out to be an atypical aberration – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has since issued an apology – tahniah Pak Presiden!

The daring deeds of our firemen came into sharp contrast the next day when I read in the papers about the sudsy antics of a group of city boys and girls in a club in Jalan Yap Kwan Seng over the weekend. It was reported that they threw all inhibitions to the wind for a communal dunk in a tub. Not because they felt a particularly need for a cleansing scrub but simply to make merry in a soapy party.

Yes, the Malaysian youth of today is nothing if not impressionable, quick to imbibe foreign influences and ever-daring to ape and emulate their foreign cousins. Once it was the power of TV with the all-invasive influence of MTV. Now it is Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Either that or someone must have been watching reruns of Debbie Does Dallas and movies of the same ilk for the umpteenth time and thought a bit of the set deserved to be imported – the tub scene that is!

The root cause of the problem – the peat fires, not the naughty nookey - off course lies across the Melaka Straits in the Riau province of Indonesia. In its rush to open up it vast acreage and put it into productive agricultural use, the government has allowed land and forest clearance on a large scale. A good idea on paper, one which Malaysia’s celebrated Felda model is predicated upon and certainly worthy of emulation. How many among Malaysians out there naively believe that the township of Jengka in Pahang, Taib Andak in Johor or Serting in Negeri Sembilan appeared on the map without violent deforestation as a necessary precursor?

Much of what is now neat rows of timber homes and orderly palm oil trees in diamond pattern were harvested of its valuable cengal and jati, making someone supremely wealthy. Mighty bulldozers flattened acre upon acre of equatorial hardwood and the rest of the land cleared the quickest and easiest way possible – strike a mach and set the forest alight. Yep, that was the how our celebrated Felda came into thriving existence.

SEEING THE WOODS FOR THE TREES

We however live in more enlightened environmental times. Where once we got away with leveling large swathes of jungles in the name of transmigration – to the point that the project had the blessings of the World Bank and received financial support from western nations – such bulldozing methods simply does not cut it anymore.

Which is just as well, as the environmental depredation it can cause, as glaringly seen by the peat fires extracts too unbearable a price to pay.

But hang on, we have the kids from the foam party, remember? Now if only we can harness their propensity for such bubbly pleasures and get them to hold such raves where they can do some good. Send them over to Riau, I say, and mabe they’d be contribute towards putting out the fires just as their bomba countrymen did for Malaysia-Indonesia cross-border cooperation all those years ago.

While we are on the subject of the fire, how did we fare in the wake of having to cope with the aftermath? A total thumbsdown, if the prevailing public reaction is anything to go by.

Parents with kids at school were left very much on tenterhooks at the degree of ineptitude in the way information regarding the declaration of emergency holiday during this troubled times. Late on Monday, parents had to contend with the string of directives emanating from Putrajaya. First deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (who is saddled with the extra burden of the Education portfolio) said it was up to parents to decide if they wanted to keep their charges at home. Then there was Minister Datuk Seri G Palanivel whose statement was neither here nor there. The cloudy air was not lifted in any way with the Education Department coming up with a wishy-washily crafted statement that contained various qualifications.

What is needed in this case someone – perhaps the Education Minister himself to take a forceful stand; by closing schools for the next three days at least. That will give parents and their charges a measure of certainty which will enable them to plan the next few days of their lives.

RAZAK CHIK wonders how much more incendiary Indonesia can be if Guy Fawkes had been born in Jakarta!