Near the Maros-Pangkep cave, firefighters worked to put out fires as smoke drifted over the dramatic karst landscape that is a defining feature of the national park and UNESCO Global Geopark surrounding the cave.
Firefighter Muhammad Ikfar said fires burned near the site for more than a week earlier this month and came within 800m of the cave.
More than 270 hectares of the national park burned between Sep 30 and Oct 18, Ikfar said.
„The first and most destructive effect is the heat. Even without direct fire touching the paintings, it could ruin them because it changes the temperature around the paintings and accelerates the process of corrosion,“ said Griffith University archaeologist Basran Burhan.
The smoke also creates soot.
„They create soot on the paintings and cover them, so that the paintings will become blurred and difficult to identify,“ he said.
On Thursday (Oct 22) and Friday, firefighters were working to put out fires in other parts of the park, firefighter Ikfar said, adding that the conditions were dry with no rain yet.
„If we don’t do something about this quick, if there isn’t any tactical mitigation efforts for this incident we will lose one of the most amazing evidence of human history in Maros-Pangkep,“ Burhan said. „And that is a great shame.“