Indonesia has scaled up its aerial response to forest and peatland fires burning across ten provinces, as smoke from Sumatra and Kalimantan reaches across the border into Malaysian Borneo.
Satellite readings published by Indonesia’s Environment Ministry and reported on 25 August put South Sumatra highest with 1,429 hotspots, followed by West Kalimantan on 1,226, Central Kalimantan on 811, East Kalimantan on 576, Riau on 503, West Papua on 468 and Jambi on 458. More than 36,000 hectares have burned across the ten affected provinces; in July alone the figure was close to 94,000 hectares. Officials have deployed over 24,000 firefighters on the ground, thirty water-bombing aircraft over Kalimantan and twenty-two helicopters over Sumatra, with thirty-five foreign-registered aircraft authorised and a further thousand military and police personnel to follow.
The pattern is familiar to anyone who has lived through a Southeast Asian dry season, and it is the peat that makes it stubborn. Drained peatland burns downward as well as outward, smouldering below the surface where water-bombing cannot easily reach, which is why crews stay on site cooling ground long after visible flame has gone. In Jambi’s Muaro Jambi district, the Public Works Ministry joined the response at Pematang Gajah village, where twenty hectares of peatland burned on 24 August; Indonesia’s national news agency reported the fire out but crews still working the hotspots.
Across the Strait the effect is measured in classrooms. Malaysian authorities closed close to 600 schools in Sarawak, affecting around 200,000 pupils, after air pollutant readings moved into unhealthy bands. Indonesia’s national disaster agency and its environment, forestry and transportation ministries are all now engaged in the response.
The dry season has weeks left to run, and the peat will decide how long this lasts rather than the wind.