Fires rage despite ‘everything’ done

Children jump into a river while haze caused by forest and land fires blankets Benua Melayu Laut village, in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, on September 17, 2026. Toxic haze has shrouded parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for weeks as Jakarta struggles to contain fires that have scorched large tracts of Borneo and Sumatra, with the smoke drifting across the region. (Photo by DITO / AFP)

THE country is doing “every­thing” to fight huge forest fires, but dozens of planes and thousands of personnel are still struggling to contain them, a senior official said.

Firefighters have been battling blazes for weeks in Borneo and Sumatra that have blanketed parts of the country, as well as neighbouring Malaysia and Singa­pore, in toxic haze.

The government has deployed 64 aircraft and 54,000 personnel to the islands since last month to try and put out the fires by water bombing, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said.

“From the air to the ground, all forces continue to move. Every­thing is being done to extinguish the fires, reduce the impact of the smoke, and, most importantly, protect the public from the threat of forest and land fires,” he said.

“The vast size of the territory and the challenging conditions of peatlands pose serious difficulties in dealing with forest and land fires in various regions.”

Daniel Sinyor, a spokesman for the disaster mitigation agency for West Kalimantan, one of the most affected areas, said the varied depths of the fires burning inside local peat soils was adding to the difficulty.

“Another challenge is the limited water sources available to this ground task force. In general, water sources decrease or even disappear in areas affected by the fires,” he said.

Last week, indigenous and civil society groups in West Kalimantan filed a class action lawsuit against the government, including the president and the governor, for allegedly failing to prevent the fire.

“This is not a new disaster. This is a disaster that occurs every year.

“This recurring pattern proves our view that the defen­dants knew about the potential haze disaster and the risks of disaster from forest and land fires,” the group’s lawyer Glorio Sanen said in a statement at the time.

Around 350 members of Japan’s Self-Defence Forces arrived in West Kalimantan this month to assist with firefighting efforts.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has also expressed readi­ness to accept help from Malaysia.

Indonesia regularly battles wild­fires during the dry season, which typically runs from July to October.

But the blazes are more intense this year, coinciding with what is expected to be the strongest El Nino climate phenomenon since comparable records began four decades ago.

Experts also blame climate change, decades of forest degradation and slash-and-burn land- clearing practices that have changed the naturally fire-resis­tant landscape.

More than 202,000ha of land were burned across Indonesia between January and July, accor­ding to the government.

The Nusantara Atlas project put the figure at close to 300,000ha over the same period and estima­ted that the total area affected was nearly 896,000ha when August is included. — AFP