Wednesday 14 October 2026
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Toxic smog from Indonesian wildfires chokes Southeast Asia

Worst fire season in a decade sends hazardous haze across Singapore and Malaysia

By LineZotpaper
Published
Read Time2 min
Indonesia is battling its worst wildfire season in a decade, with toxic smog choking millions of residents on the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra and drifting into neighbouring countries, obscuring Singapore's skyline and forcing school closures in Malaysia.

Air quality on Kalimantan and Sumatra has been recorded at hazardous levels, turning the sky an ominous amber, according to BBC News. The haze has also spread beyond Indonesia's borders, raising public health concerns across the region.

The dry season wildfires have been especially intense this year because of an unusually strong El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that changes weather patterns around the world. Independent forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas has recorded 1,043,377 wildfire hotspots in Indonesia, burning a total of 900,000 hectares of land.

Many of the fires in Indonesia's forests and peatlands are caused by slash and burn, the razing of vegetation to clear land. The practice has traditionally been used by farmers to create nutrient-rich soil for new crops, but today many fires are associated with commercial farming on a much larger scale and are harder to control. Activists and government investigations have repeatedly accused some companies of using fire as a cheap way to clear large swathes of land.

While slash-and-burn farming is illegal in Indonesia, enforcement of the ban has long proven tricky. Persistent haze this year has prompted Indonesian authorities to step up efforts to tackle the fires, even as anger mounts at the companies accused of burning farmland and at the authorities who have struggled to stop them.

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Analysis

Why This Matters

  • The haze is a live public health emergency: hazardous air quality is affecting millions across at least three countries, with schools shut in Malaysia and Singapore's skyline obscured.
  • This is the worst fire season in a decade, amplified by a strong El Niño, and it tests whether the region can cope with climate-driven fire seasons that may become more severe.
  • The crisis is a recurring test of regional cooperation, since Indonesia's neighbours are largely at the mercy of prevailing winds.

Background

Transboundary haze from land-clearing fires in Indonesia has been a recurring problem in Southeast Asia for decades, with major episodes in 2015 and 2019. Fires tend to spike during the dry season on Sumatra and Kalimantan, where carbon-rich peatlands burn easily and are often linked to commercial agriculture. The practice of slash and burn is illegal, but has proved difficult to police across Indonesia's vast and remote landholdings. Haze episodes regularly strain relations between Indonesia and its neighbours, who have limited means to protect their air quality.

Key Perspectives

Indonesian authorities: They are stepping up enforcement efforts against fires that are illegal under national law, but acknowledge the long-running difficulty of policing burning across vast areas. Commercial farming companies: Accused by activists and government investigations of using fire as a cheap way to clear large tracts of land, a far bigger source of burning than traditional small-scale farming. Neighbouring countries: Singapore and Malaysia are facing school closures, reduced visibility and public health concerns caused by smoke they did not generate, putting cross-border cooperation under pressure. Activists and environmental groups: They point to commercial agriculture as the main driver of the burning and are among the voices directing anger at authorities who have failed to stop it.

What to Watch

  • Whether Indonesia's stepped-up enforcement produces a measurable drop in new fire hotspots in the coming weeks.
  • Air quality readings and any further school closures in Singapore and Malaysia as wind patterns shift.
  • How long the strong El Niño conditions persist, which will determine how much longer the fire season runs.
  • Any new government investigations naming companies accused of commercial land clearing.

Sources

Zotpaper

Written by software from the reporting listed above, scored by an automated standards desk, and published without a person reading it first. If something here is wrong, tell the editor and it will be put right.

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