Mount Bromo Tourism is one of the most iconic tourist destinations in East Java and Indonesia. As we know, it was hit by a disaster where many areas burned down. This could happen due to the carelessness of visitors who happened to be holding a pre-wedding photo event using flares, but did not maintain security during the event. The resulting sparks ultimately burned a large area of Mount Bromo and this is of course a huge loss for the world of tourism.
As a result of forest and land fires in the Mount Bromo area, the landscape looks barren. Blackish colors appeared everywhere, traces of burnt grass and trees. There are also many collections of rare flora such as tosari orchids, edelweiss flowers, malelo grass which are rarely seen.
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The impact of the Mount Bromo fire
In the end, the impact of the Mount Bromo fire had to be experienced very significantly. Not only in the tourism sector, but other sectors of people’s lives there have been disrupted, not to mention the economic impact, MSMEs and hotel occupancy rates have fallen drastically. Apart from that, the endemic flora system which was neatly arranged has also been destroyed by fire. Even though intensive treatment has been carried out, including providing water bombing to the affected areas, this incident still had a tremendous impact, with around 500 hectares of area recorded as victims of damage from this fire.
A careless action carried out by irresponsible individuals, especially since all their activities there were carried out without paying attention to safety factors which are the main thing. Moreover, it is known that Indonesia is currently entering the dry season, where everything can catch fire easily and there have been many cases in other areas where similar incidents have occurred. Due to these actions, the perpetrators responsible have been detained for further processing.
detik.com (Foto: ANTARA FOTO/Muhammad Mada)
Mount Bromo Tourism Reopens
This loss, if estimated, could reach around 350,000 USD, because the area affected by the fire was so massive. Apart from damaging the existing tourist attraction, the damage also affected the existing supporting facilities and infrastructure in the area, for example damage to clean water pipes. Apart from that, the Mount Bromo tourist area was also closed due to this incident. But thankfully, now this favorite tourist spot for local and foreign tourists has started to reopen.
Many tourists have come to visit the Mount Bromo tourist area again after the fire. Even though it has not yet returned to normal as before, this is certainly a positive signal for life and tourism activities there, which are the economic backbone for many tourism actors and practitioners. It does take time to return things to normal, especially the locations of the affected tourist attractions. It is estimated that it will take 5 years for everything to return to normal.
Anticipate so that the incident does not happen again
The Mount Bromo fire incident is certainly a very valuable lesson for all of us Indonesians, especially for tourism site managers. In the future, there needs to be a clear system regarding prevention systems so that similar incidents do not happen again. Strict action and sanctions also need to be applied to violators so that they can have a deterrent effect so that in the future it does not happen again.
An interesting fact is that from the fire incident, there were areas that were not burned. It was discovered afterwards that the area was overgrown with mentigi bushes which were resistant to the threat of fire. For this reason, in the future, managers will study the possibility of developing this type of plant as a fire break, which can prevent the affected area from expanding if there is a similar incident.
