A proposal to require firefighting equipment at every landfill, after three fires in one week

Three fires, one week

Between 1 and 7 September 2026, three landfills across Java and Bali were burning at the same time.

The largest was TPA Putri Cempo in Solo, alight from 2 September and affecting around 6 hectares across blocks B, C and D. TPA Waringinkurung in Serang had been burning since 28 August. TPA Mandung in Tabanan, Bali, burned for roughly a week.

That clustering is what moved the discussion from incident response to standing policy. Jalal Abdul Nasir, a member of Commission XII of the DPR, has proposed that firefighting capability stop being something a landfill either happens to have or does not.

What a minimum package would contain

The proposal is specific rather than exhortatory, which is its most useful quality. Nasir set out ten components that every landfill should hold as a minimum standard.

Every landfill must have a firefighting package. At minimum a permanent water source, a pond or water reservoir, a high capacity pump, a hydrant, heavy equipment such as an excavator or bulldozer, fire brigade access, hoses or a mobile pump, cover soil, an emergency standard operating procedure, and staff present 24 hours.

Read against what has actually happened at Indonesian landfills this year, the list reads less like a wish and more like a set of lessons already learned.

A permanent water source and reservoir address the constraint that defined the Solo response, where tanker turnaround time limited progress and Bogor later built an emergency reservoir on site mid incident. Fire brigade access speaks to the narrow approach roads that crews reported at Putri Cempo. Heavy equipment matters because landfill fires burn below the surface and are extinguished by excavating and separating burning material, not by wetting the top. Cover soil is the routine control that prevents ignition in the first place. An emergency standard operating procedure is what allows a site to close, reroute and reopen in an orderly way, as Bogor managed over two days at Galuga.

Twenty four hour staffing is the least glamorous item and possibly the most consequential. A fire detected at its start is a manageable event. The same fire discovered at dawn, after burning unobserved overnight in a dry season, is a multi week operation.

Risk mapping as the allocation mechanism

The second element of the proposal is a national programme for landfill fire prevention and zero open dumping covering 2026 to 2030, built on risk maps prepared by the environment ministry together with local governments.

The classification proposed is a four colour scale: green for low risk, yellow for sites needing mitigation, orange for fire prone sites, and red for emergency or high risk.

This is the part that turns a wish list into a budget. Requiring ten components at every one of Indonesia's several hundred landfills at once is not financeable. Ranking sites by risk and sequencing investment accordingly is. A red classified site with deep accumulated material, no water source and no night staffing is where the first money should go, and a colour on a published map is a far more effective argument in a budget meeting than a general appeal to prepare for the dry season.

Risk mapping also creates accountability that survives a change of officials. A site publicly classified as high risk, which then burns without having received its mitigation, produces a documented question. That is uncomfortable and it is precisely how prevention budgets come to be protected.

Commission XII has previously pressed for a risk audit of all active landfills, so this proposal builds on an established line of parliamentary interest rather than arriving in isolation.

The 2026 to 2030 timescale is worth noting too. It runs past the national target of full waste management in 2028, and that is realistic rather than careless. Even if every landfill stops open dumping on schedule, material already buried over decades remains in place and continues generating gas for years afterwards. Fire risk does not end when disposal practice changes; it declines slowly as old cells age or are mined out. A prevention programme running to 2030 acknowledges that.

The connection to open dumping

Pairing fire prevention with zero open dumping in a single programme is the analytically correct move.

Landfill fires in Indonesia are overwhelmingly a consequence of how sites are operated rather than of bad luck. Waste tipped loose and uncompacted, with a high organic fraction and no daily cover, generates methane in the mass and provides oxygen paths for fire to travel. A site operated as a controlled or sanitary landfill, receiving mostly residual material with organic waste diverted upstream, offers far less to burn and generates far less gas.

The environment ministry made the same connection during the Solo fire, identifying open dumping as one of the causes and noting that prolonged dry conditions worsened it.

This means the two halves of the proposed programme reinforce each other. Ending open dumping reduces fire risk as a by product. Fire prevention equipment protects sites during the years in which that transition is still under way. Neither alone is sufficient, because a site cannot convert overnight and cannot wait either.

Sirkularium's view for government and public institutions

Three observations.

First, districts should not wait for a national mandate to audit their own sites against this ten point list. The list is public, it costs nothing to apply, and most districts will find they already hold several components. Identifying which two or three are missing converts an abstract risk into a specific procurement item that can enter the next budget cycle.

Second, on the cheapest items first. Of the ten components, cover soil, an emergency standard operating procedure and night staffing are the least expensive and arguably the highest value. A written procedure covering closure, rerouting and reopening costs officer time rather than capital, and Bogor's two day turnaround at Galuga showed what having one is worth. We would encourage every district with a single disposal site to draft that procedure this quarter.

Third, on publishing the risk classification. If the colour coded mapping proceeds, its value depends on publication. A risk map held internally informs the agency that already knows. A published map informs the council that approves the budget, the community living beside the site, and the province deciding where to direct assistance. We would encourage the ministry to commit to publication at the point the methodology is set, rather than after the first round of classification.

What to watch next: whether the fire prevention and zero open dumping programme is formally adopted for 2026 to 2030, whether the ten component package becomes a regulated minimum standard or remains guidance, the publication of risk classifications by site, and whether budget allocations follow the classification in the 2027 cycle.

Three fires in one week produced a specific, costed, sequenced proposal rather than a general expression of concern. Sirkularium will continue following whether it is adopted.