Motorists ride their motorbikes through haze due to a forest fire in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia, September 15, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan
PALANGKA RAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Schools in two cities in the Indonesian part of Borneo island will be closed for a week after smoke from forest fires caused air quality to hit "dangerous" levels, a local government official said on Sunday.
Indonesia and neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia are regularly hit by smoke from slash-and-burn clearances of forests for farms and palm oil plantations, but conditions this year have been the worst since 2015 due to an El Nino weather pattern causing an extended dry spell.
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