Jakarta Airport [CGK]

Flights: no disruption

According to Yudistiawan, Assistant Deputy for Communication and Legal Affairs at the Soekarno-Hatta branch office, the fires “did not disrupt flight operations” and every departure and arrival ran to schedule. Both fires were outside the airport perimeter.

The airport said it was coordinating closely with crews on the ground to track where the smoke was drifting, so that it would not reduce pilots’ visibility on take-off or landing. That is the mechanism by which smoke can affect flights — the same one behind this month’s Kalimantan haze cancellations — and it did not come into play here. The airport authority also sent one of its own fire units to help in Kosambi.

If your flight is delayed this week, these fires are very unlikely to be the reason. Kalimantan routes remain the ones to watch.

Two separate fires, one afternoon

Kosambi. The fire began in the Kosambi Permai Extension warehouse complex in Desa Belimbing, Tangerang Regency, which detikNews placed north of the airport. The Tangerang Regency fire command centre said it appears to have started at the back of a spring-bed warehouse at about 12:45 WIB; Kompas reported the first call to BPBD around midday. By the time crews arrived, “the warehouses had already collapsed”, said Achmad Taufik, head of BPBD Kabupaten Tangerang, and stocks of foam mattresses made the fire hard to fight.

The count of burned warehouses rose through the day — 5 in the earliest report, then 20, then 26 — before settling at 28: 14 contractors’ logistics warehouses, 8 cold-storage units and 6 empty buildings. Around 80 personnel from BPBD Kabupaten Tangerang, the Jakarta fire service, the Soekarno-Hatta airport authority, the PIK area and the complex’s own water tankers fought it for about ten hours. The provisional cause is an electrical short circuit. No one was reported hurt.

Estimates of the damage conflict. The fire command centre put it at about Rp 20 billion; CNN Indonesia quoted Achmad Taufik giving a provisional figure of about Rp 80 billion, pending a full inventory.

Batuceper. The second fire, south of the airport in Tangerang City, was reported through the 112 emergency line at 12:35 WIB at the PT Global Teguh Indonesia lamp factory on Jalan Pembangunan I. Workers were on their lunch break and were evacuated; no casualties were reported. Mahdiar, head of BPBD Kota Tangerang, said about 60 personnel were deployed. Plastic and cardboard stock, strong wind and a water source that crews struggled to reach kept it burning well into the night. At about 07:00 WIB on Thursday, BPBD Kota Tangerang put the work at 80 percent complete, and local media reported that parts of the building had collapsed on top of smouldering material, with cooling still under way around midday. The cause has not been confirmed.

What to expect getting to the airport

• Smoke, not closures. No toll or road closures were reported around either fire. The plume from Kosambi was visible from the airport itself. Near a fire site, smoke can cut visibility suddenly; if you are driving, slow down.
• Allow some slack. Fire engines and water tankers were brought in from across Tangerang and Jakarta, and Batuceper was still an active site on Thursday. If your route runs through Kosambi or Batuceper, add around 30 minutes, and use a navigation app with live traffic.
• The airport train. The Soekarno-Hatta rail link stops at Batu Ceper station. We found no reports of disruption to it. Our airport-to-city transport guide covers the alternatives if you need one.

Air quality and masks

We could not find an official air-quality warning issued for these fires, from either Tangerang authority or the environment ministry. That does not make the smoke harmless. Burning foam, plastic and cardboard gives off an acrid smoke that irritates the eyes, throat and lungs, and how far it spreads depends on the wind.

• If you are in a sensitive group — asthma, COPD or another lung or heart condition, pregnancy, young children or elderly relatives — wear a well-fitting mask (KN95 or N95 rather than a loose surgical mask) when you are outdoors near Kosambi or Batuceper, and keep car windows closed with the air conditioning on recirculate.
• Carry your inhaler or medication in your hand luggage, not your checked bag.
• Check the numbers yourself. The environment ministry publishes the Air Pollution Standard Index (ISPU) for Tangerang monitoring stations. Earlier this month, during the Anak Krakatau ash, Tangerang City’s environment agency advised sensitive groups to wear masks outdoors even when the index read “moderate” — a reasonable rule of thumb for smoke as well.

What is not yet known

When the Batuceper fire was declared fully out, if it has been by the time you read this. The confirmed cause of either fire. Which figure for the Kosambi losses is right. None of these is likely to change anything for your flight; we will update this article if that turns out to be wrong.