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🇹🇭 Thailand /Environment & Climate

Haze from Indonesian fires spreads again

From Bangkok Post · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Explainer Named sources Ongoing story
  • Fires have blanketed parts of Indonesia with hazardous haze, affecting health, closing schools and sending smoke into Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.
  • Nearly 300,000 hectares have burned this year, while fire emissions from Aug. 28 to Sept. 3 exceeded the comparable total from 2015, according to cited estimates.
  • Analysts linked the worsening fires to dry El Niño conditions and human-started fires, especially on peatlands that become highly flammable when drained.

Thick smoke is spreading across Indonesia again, with fires burning across large areas of Borneo and Sumatra and haze drifting into Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. The smoke has increased respiratory problems and forced schools to close.

Nearly 300,000 hectares have burned in Indonesia this year, according to an independent estimate from the Nusantara Atlas portal. Carbon emissions began rising in late July, and by the end of August they had reached levels comparable to those recorded during the strong El Niño years of 2015 and 2019, Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, told AFP.

We’re seeing already now… really extreme fire emissions comparable to those previous strong El Niño years, and also the extent of the smoke and the haze and the air quality impacts.

· Mark ParringtonThe Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service scientist described the scale of emissions and air-quality effects.

“We’re seeing already now… really extreme fire emissions comparable to those previous strong El Niño years, and also the extent of the smoke and the haze and the air quality impacts,” Parrington said. CAMS’ Fire Emission Watch portal recorded more than 23 million tonnes of carbon emissions from fires between Aug. 28 and Sept. 3, above the 20.7 million tonnes recorded during the same period in 2015.

El Niño does not ignite fires. It creates the dry conditions that allow human-started fires to escape and become very large.

· David GaveauThe Nusantara Atlas founder explained how weather conditions interact with human-started fires.

Most fires are concentrated on Borneo, which Indonesia shares with Brunei and Malaysia, and on Sumatra. Analysts said El Niño, which the United Nations described this week as potentially the strongest in four decades, has created drier conditions that allow fires to spread. David Gaveau, founder of Nusantara Atlas, said land clearing also played a role.

“El Niño does not ignite fires. It creates the dry conditions that allow human-started fires to escape and become very large,” Gaveau told AFP. Fires on peatlands are particularly difficult to extinguish because dried peat turns stored organic material into fuel. Pantau Gambut detected more than 210,000 hotspots in peatland areas between January and August. More than five million people across Borneo and Sumatra face direct health risks from the haze, according to Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono.

Peat is a naturally wet ecosystem and stores large amounts of organic material. When peat is drained, this organic material is converted into fuel.

· Wahyu PerdanaThe Pantau Gambut spokesman explained why fires on drained peatlands are difficult to control.
About this summary

Originally published by Bangkok Post in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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