DoE Sarawak director, Dr Abdul Rahman Awang said detailed reports of the incidents had been made and arrangements are currently being carried out to charge the companies in the court.

"The companies that had been found conducting the open burning were operating wood-based industries and plantation estates in the central and southern part of the State," he said to reporters here on Thursday.

The department had been issuing a directive banning all kinds of open burning earlier this year to avoid from the haze that hit Sarawak from worsening due to the local indiscriminate wide-scale burning.

For this year, the department had registered one case to be heard at the Sessions Court of Sibu in November against a company who had been alleged to have conducted open burning.

Dr Abdul Rahman said the department's enforcement efforts had been strengthened to conduct aerial surveillance with the engagement of the Police Air Unit and chartered aircrafts from Hornbill Skyways.

"Depending on the areas and aircrafts that we used, we now could expedite the deployment of our personnel to the site where open burning being carried out to identify the culprits immediately," he added.

In assuring wider coverage of operations, Dr Abdul Rahman also disclosed that another branch of DoE would be set up in Sibu by 1 January 2003 while the number of their staff statewide are projected to be increased to 114 by 2005.

At the moment, the department had a total of 45 personnel with 24 of them in Kuching, 10 in Sibu, nine in Bintulu and five in Miri.

Meanwhile, he also disclosed that no hotspots had been detected within Sarawak while 58 were found in Kalimantan.