Thailand:Govtsets up ad hoc centre to deal with forest fires
16March 2005
TNA
MCOT.org – BANGKOK, Mar 16 (TNA) – The government, through the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, is setting up an ad-hoc centre to deal with forest fires.
Newly-appointed Natural Resources and Environment Minister Yongyut Tiyapirat told journalists that he would call a meeting of agencies concerned Wednesday morning to discuss the establishment of the ad-hoc centre and the restructuring of measures on preventing and dealing with forest fires.
“The satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) will be installed at the ad-hoc centre to help find out accurate positions of any forest fires, which will make relief operations be efficient and effective”, he disclosed.
GPS, designed and operated by the US military, provides specially coded satellite signals that can be processed in a GPS receiver, enabling the receiver to compute any position, velocity and time accurately.
Mr. Yongyut said that the ad-hoc centre, which will be opened soon, would be under the supervision of the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department.
Forest fires normally occur in the dry season.
