At least 52 helicopters have been mobilised for the work, spraying more than263 million litres of water and 164 tonnes tonnes of salt for cloud seeding aspart of the firefighting efforts in six provinces which have declared states ofemergency.

Widodo also flew to Riau province, where nearly 50,000 hectares of forest haveburned, to encourage authorities to get the haze under control.

Nearly every year, Indonesian forest fires spread health-damaging haze acrossthe country and into neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore. The fires are oftenstarted by smallholders and plantation owners who set land on fire as a cheapway of clearing it for new planting.

Many areas of Indonesia are prone to rapid burning because of thedraining of swampy peatlands forests for pulp wood and palm oil plantations.

Poor visibility caused by smoke caused flight delays at severalairports in Indonesia and Malaysia, and prompted authorities to shut downschools in some parts of both countries.

The Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency detected 2,153 hotspotsacross the country on September 16, mostly in the six provinces of Riau, Jambi,South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan./.VNA