Forest Fires Force School Closures in Indonesia Amid Severe Drought

Forest fires have forced Indonesian authorities to close dozens of schools, protecting students from the blazes as a long and severe dry season, worsened by El Niño, takes hold. Thick smoke billowing from the fires has disrupted the education of tens of thousands of students on Borneo island.

The smog has also drifted into neighboring Malaysia, where the meteorological department has urged citizens to stay indoors. Air pollution levels in the town of Serian in Sarawak state reached an "unhealthy" level of 190 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, firefighters are in their ninth day of battling a fire in a national park on Java island that has consumed 900 hectares.

Across Indonesia, the total area affected by fires since the beginning of the year has surpassed 107,000 hectares, more than double the area lost in 2023. Over 48,000 personnel have been mobilized to combat the fires across six provinces. The government has deployed 43 helicopters and 15 fixed-wing aircraft for cloud-seeding operations to induce rainfall, weather permitting.

Indonesia's meteorological agency reported that the average air temperature in July reached 27 degrees Celsius, compared to the usual monthly average of 26.2 degrees. The agency predicts a more severe, longer, and fire-prone dry season this year. Experts attribute this environmental degradation partly to the direct impact of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which is causing rising sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and significant global weather pattern changes. The current El Niño cycle is expected to be the strongest on record, potentially amplified by climate change.