JAKARTA: Motorists drive with headlights ong Aug. 20 along a haze-shrouded road in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, as smoke originating from widespread forest and land fires has significantly reduced visibility and degraded air quality across the province. Indonesia's government says over 100,000 hectares burned in the first half of the year. (AFP/Reina)
Forest and land fires continue to spread across Kalimantan amid a prolonged dry season, with extensive land clearing through burning adding to the threat as the government’s weather modification efforts struggle to contain the intensifying blazes.
Hot spots have been detected in all five Indonesian provinces on the island of Borneo as of Friday.
In Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, fires have been occurring with increasing frequency, according to a local forestry agency official who asked to be identified by his initials, AP.
“It is getting more frequent and intense and it is predicted to become even more severe. I believe we have not reached the peak of forest and land fires yet,” AP told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
AP said local authorities had stepped up monitoring and firefighting efforts, but their capacity remained limited as individuals and companies continued to deliberately burn land for clearing, including to make way for oil palm plantations. He stopped short at identifying those responsible.
Weather modification operations have helped bring rain to some areas, AP said, but the growing number of hot spots requires additional measures and funding to strengthen the response by local authorities and firefighters, including the procurement of more water pumps.
AP acknowledged that budget cuts resulting from the central government’s austerity measures also reduced local administrations’ capacity to respond to the fires.
NASA’s fire monitoring system showed clusters of hot spots stretching across much of Kalimantan, with the highest concentration in West Kalimantan.
The Forestry Ministry’s forest and land fire monitoring system recorded more than 3,000 hot spots across the island’s five provinces on Friday.
However, the ministry’s official statement on Friday said that the number of high-confidence hot spots had fallen sharply, from 1,563 on Thursday to 116 on Friday across West, Central and South Kalimantan.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) recorded visibility of 4 kilometres in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, and 6 km in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, as of Thursday.
Haze briefly disrupted flight operations at Tjilik Riwut Airport in Palangkaraya on Thursday morning, forcing one incoming flight to circle before landing.
Amateur footage circulating on social media also showed severely reduced visibility in the region, while residents complained about persistent haze and deteriorating air quality.
IQAir recorded on Friday unhealthy air quality across much of the region which shares a border with Malaysia, with conditions in West Kalimantan reaching hazardous levels. Other parts of the island recorded unhealthy to very unhealthy air.
Last week, more than 100 schools were closed in Malaysia’s Sarawak state to protect children from worsening haze.
Students attend a class on Friday at a state elementary school in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan. The Palangkaraya Education Agency has implemented measures for elementary and junior high school students, including delaying the start of classes to 8 a.m., temporarily suspending outdoor activities, requiring students to wear masks and implementing distance learning for early childhood education students due to haze from forest and land fires that has deteriorated air quality. (Antara/Auliya Rahman)
In response to the dire situation, the central government said it was strengthening firefighting operations in high-risk areas, deploying 52 aircraft for water bombing, weather modification and other operations nationwide.
BMKG, however, warned that the weather conditions remains unfavorable for weather modification with cloud formation, which is crucial for such operation, expected to remain limited across the region for the next 10 days.
The agency even forecast that the rainy season would not begin until mid-October, leaving Kalimantan vulnerable to further fires and haze in the weeks ahead.
Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) campaigner Uli Artha Siagian said the government needs to look beyond its annual reliance on weather modification and address companies and concession holders whose activities contribute to the fires.
“It has been carried out every year, and yet forest and land fires recur every year too. Do we really want to keep repeating the same cycle, with our land, forests and peatlands burning while the same response fails to bring change?” she told the Post on Friday.
A drone view shows smoke and flames rising from wildfire burning in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan province, August 13, 2026. (Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana)
Walhi’s West Kalimantan chapter said the province’s peatlands, which act as natural sponges by absorbing water and helping maintain its availability during dry periods, were already in crisis.
It attributed their degradation to hundreds of oil palm plantation permits and other forest-use concessions that undermined the biome’s ecological functions.
The Forestry Ministry said it was investigating the causes of the fires and would take legal action if violations were found.
“If intentional burning, negligence or violations of obligations to control forest and land fires are found, law enforcement measures will be taken in accordance with applicable regulations,” ministry spokesperson Ristianto Pribadi said in a statement.
In a related development, the Environment Ministry said it had sealed parts of the concession of PT Bintang Harapan Palma, a palm oil company operating in Ogan Komering Ilir, South Sumatra, following an inspection of fires detected in the area.
The ministry identified two fire-affected sites, including one covering about 454 hectares within the company’s concession, and said it was continuing to investigate the fires.- Jakarta Post/ANN
