|
As thick smoke from Indonesia's forest fires spreads across Southeast Asia, schools have closed, air pollution has reached dangerous levels and millions are struggling with the effects. But behind the recurring haze lies a bigger question about Indonesia's peatlands, plantation industries and why the region has struggled to find a lasting solution.
For many people across Southeast Asia, the arrival of the dry season brings an unwelcome but familiar problem: thick, grey smoke that settles over cities, makes it difficult to breathe and, in particularly bad years, forces schools and businesses to close.
This year, the haze has returned with a vengeance, with fires burning across parts of Indonesia, where the fires have left a trail of destruction, burning through forests, destroying homes and forcing thousands to flee affected areas.
In the latest incident, nearly 300 homes were destroyed in Bangka Belitung province, with close to 1,000 residents forced to evacuate after a fire that appeared to have been extinguished continued burning underground and spread towards a village. According to The Guardian, the Indonesian government has described this year's conditions as the worst in a decade, with some fires burning for nearly three months. The country's wildlife has also suffered, particularly in Borneo, where at least 46 critically endangered orangutans have been rescued since August. With the dry conditions continuing, authorities have deployed more than 60,000 personnel to fight the fires, although thick smoke has made even aerial firefighting operations difficult.
The consequences are also felt well beyond Indonesia's borders as the heavy smoke drifts into neighbouring Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and even the Philippines.
In Singapore, the city's famous skyline has been barely visible through the smog, while air pollution reached record levels just as the country prepared to host its Formula One Grand Prix. Across the border in Malaysia, authorities have ordered schools to close in several states, and in Indonesia, where the fires originate, communities have been dealing with weeks of polluted air and a growing number of respiratory illnesses.
As per Swiss air quality monitor IQAir’s live ‘Most polluted global major cities ranking’ on Wednesday, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia topped it (with an air quality index (AQI) of 197) , followed by Medan, Indonesia (192). Singapore was on the fifth spot (181), while Jakarta, Indonesia (154) was on the seventh. Today is a nimprovement since last week, when Singapore topped as the most polluted on the planet with an AQI of 216.
According to the BBC, this year's fire season is among Indonesia's worst in recent years, made particularly severe by a strong El Niño weather pattern that has brought unusually hot and dry conditions to the region. The prolonged drought has allowed fires to spread more easily, while the lack of rain has made efforts to contain them increasingly difficult.
Indonesian magazine, Tempo reported that as of October 9, 2026, the fire burned with 7,555 hotspots across the country and 196 fire spots recorded in six priority provinces, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).
The six provinces prioritized for firefighting efforts are Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan. A total of 706.19 hectares of land burned across these areas in the previous 24 hours, according to BNPB's wildfire response dashboard.
How does it compare to previous years?
In 2015, the worst fires recorded, then President Joko Widodo promised Indonesia would solve the haze problem within three years. According to reports, the fires are much smaller in 2026, but the haze problem rages on.
Some 2.6 million ha burned in 2015, followed by another 1.65 million ha in 2019. In 2026 alone, nearly 900,000 ha had burned by late August, according to independent forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas.
Analysts indicate the area burned and emissions are on track to match the record blazes of 2015, which generated 333 megatonnes of carbon. As of 7 September, fires in Indonesia produced 76m tonnes of
carbon (MtC) in 2026.
Yet, while El Niño has made the situation worse, the fires themselves are hardly new. Indonesia has experienced recurring forest and land fires for decades, with the resulting haze becoming an almost annual problem for its Southeast Asian neighbours. Much of it has been linked to the clearing of land for agriculture, particularly palm oil and timber plantations, where burning vegetation remains a cheap method of preparing land despite being illegal.
What makes these fires particularly difficult to control, however, is not always what is burning above the ground, but what lies beneath it.
Continue reading on the website
-Asia Media Centre
|
