Fire and rescue department assistant deputy-general Zurkarnian Mohamad Kasim said the contingent left for Riau province aboard three military aircraft.

"They will be in Sumatra for at least a month. It is a tough mission. We will only be fighting the fire from the ground. But we hope Mother Nature will intervene with rain," he told AFP.

Zurkarnian said the firefighters would be equipped with heavy-duty pumps and all-terrain vehicles, but that the task was made more complicated and dangerous by the lack of water in Sumatra.

As frustration mounted last week over Indonesia's inability to douse the blazes, deputy premier Najib Razak urged Jakarta to clear bureaucratic hurdles delaying the dispatch of the firefighters "as soon as possible".

The same team fought fires in Indonesia during the 1997-98 haze crisis which blighted parts of Southeast Asia.

A meteorological department official told AFP that overnight rain and shifting winds had further cleared the air over the capital Kuala Lumpur and surrounding districts which were hit hard by haze last week.

Over the weekend the shifting winds sent the smoke and dust towards northern Malaysia, including the resort islands of Penang and Langkawi, but they cleared Monday as changing conditions pushed the haze even further north.

"We have a clear day in all the states in the peninsula except for Perlis," he said, referring to the northern state which borders Thailand.

Perlis recorded an air pollution index (API) of 83 on Monday, from 132 Sunday which put it into the "unhealthy" range of 100-200.

A department of environment official in the northern resort island of Penang, which also houses most of Malaysia's IT industry, said that air quality there had improved sharply, with the API falling to below 100 from 126 on Sunday.

However, the situation worsened on Borneo island where fires are burning in Indonesia's Kalimantan province, affecting Malaysia's neighbouring Sarawak state. The API in the coastal town of Miri shot up to 116 Monday from 52 Sunday.

Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur and the western coast, which is separated from Sumatra by the narrow Malacca Strait, bore the brunt of the pollution crisis last week.

A state of emergency was declared in two coastal towns but the measure was lifted Saturday as heavy rains and shifting winds brought a reprieve.

However, forecasters have warned that because hundreds of fires are still burning on Sumatra, another shift in the winds could bring the pollution right back to peninsular Malaysia.

Indonesia's Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban said Sunday that he would hold further talks with Malaysian Environment Minister Adenan Satem later this week, after a crisis meeting last Thursday in North Sumatra.

Kaban said the pair would discuss "further measures" needed to stop the blazes that have been lit to clear land and forest fires on Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Economists say that the haze, which appeared in Malaysia two weeks ago, has already affected productivity and consumer spending and could also harm the tourism industry which is Malaysia's second-biggest foreign exchange earner.

Haze is an annual problem and the worst-ever bout, in 1997 and 1998, cost the region an estimated 9.0 billion dollars in damages by disrupting air travel and other business activities.

Australia To Send Bush Firefighters To Sumatra
Sydney (AFP) Aug 15, 2005 - Australia will send a dozen bush firefighting experts to Indonesia to help battle major fires on Sumatra island which have blanketed neighboring Malaysia in clouds of smoke and dust, officials said Monday.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Australian team would be drawn from firefighting and emergency management agencies across Australia as well as members of the military and government aid officers.

He said the assistance had been requested by Indonesia.

"The team's role will be to support Indonesian authorities on the planning and management of their response, and to help determine what further assistance Australia may be able to provide," he said.

The widespread fires have produced severe pollution across parts of Sumatra and peninsular Malaysia, resulting in the declaration of a state of emergency in two towns in Malaysia last week.

Australia, the world's driest continent, has frequent bushfire emergencies during the southern summer months.

Downer said the emergency aid was being offered as part of an Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development established following the devastating earthquake and tsunami which struck the region on December 26.

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