Indonesian Fires Push Air Quality to Hazardous Levels Across Southeast Asia

Indonesian Fires Push Air Quality to Hazardous Levels Across Southeast Asia

Smoke from forest and peatland fires burning across Indonesia has pushed air quality to hazardous levels in parts of Malaysian Borneo, triggering a surge in respiratory illness and forcing the cancellation of outdoor Independence Day celebrations, according to Al Jazeera. The smoke, drifting from fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra, has settled over the Malaysian state of Sarawak for much of August and has also reached peninsular Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore.

On Tuesday, six areas in Sarawak recorded hazardous air quality, with readings above 300 on Malaysia's Air Pollutant Index, Al Jazeera reported. In Kuching, the state capital, the index hit 407, while in Serian, a town close to the Kalimantan border, it reached 408. Anything above 100 is considered unhealthy.

Residents described the conditions as severe. Mia Emylia Hassan, 33, a mother of two in Kuching, told Al Jazeera: "The air here is very thick. It smells like smoke, and it's just white all over." Visibility from her house had dropped to about a kilometre, and she said she had not seen blue sky for over a month. The haze arrived in early August, shortly after her 10-month-old daughter came home from the hospital after a lung infection. "She's not healing properly because her lungs are still developing," Hassan said. The family has had to rush the infant back to the emergency room twice because she could not breathe.

Health impacts have been widespread. During the week of August 23 to 29, asthma cases in Sarawak climbed to 1,811, up from 219 the previous week, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday, while conjunctivitis cases rose to 720 from 146, according to Al Jazeera. Karen-Michaela Tan, an asthma patient living near Kuala Lumpur, said that a week after the haze thickened, she was "wheezing audibly" and "breathless when climbing stairs." She noted that doctors were "erring on the side of caution" with asthma patients, choosing to increase dosages rather than risk hospitalisation.

Official Responses and School Closures

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has activated a Level 3 transboundary haze alert—its highest—for the southern part of the region, citing an increase in fire hotspots and prolonged dry weather fuelled by an intensifying El Niño pattern, Al Jazeera reported.

Sarawak cancelled its outdoor Independence Day celebrations on Monday, and officials warned that worse restrictions could follow. Deputy Premier Douglas Uggah Embas told reporters that any area where readings cross 500 on the Air Pollutant Index would be placed under a local emergency, and all public and private offices would be closed.

On August 20 and 21, nearly 600 schools in and around Kuching shut, affecting some 200,000 primary and secondary students, Al Jazeera reported. On August 28, 30 more schools in Sarawak closed, keeping more than 4,000 children at home. Yap Kai Jinn, 31, a coach at Square One Football, a Kuala Lumpur academy, said the club had cancelled all training sessions and matches since last week.

In the Philippines, Quezon City, the most populous city in the capital region, cancelled in-person public school classes on Tuesday because of the haze, according to com and The Straits Times. The Environmental Management Bureau advised the public to limit prolonged outdoor activities, especially those sensitive to air pollution, and urged residents to stay indoors and wear masks outdoors.

Fire Scale and Causes

According to official data cited by Al Jazeera, fires between January and July burned more than 200,000 hectares (about 494,000 acres), an area three times the size of Jakarta. Hotspots in West Kalimantan nearly doubled on Monday, rising by 3,553 to 7,377, while the number of active fires rose by 88 to 104, said Berton Panjaitan, an official at Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency, as reported by Al Jazeera. In Central Kalimantan, hotspots declined by 147 to 5,244, while fire spots increased by 16 to 72.

Air quality readings in Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan reached 780 on Monday on the index used by IQAir, a Swiss company that monitors pollution data, Al Jazeera reported. com and The Straits Times also noted that air quality ranged from "very unhealthy" to "hazardous" in parts of the Philippines and much of Borneo, according to IQAir.

The fires are largely set on purpose, analysts say, with plantation companies and smallholders burning rainforest and carbon-rich peatland to clear ground for palm oil, farming, and pulp and paper production, Al Jazeera reported. Indonesian police said last week that they had arrested 72 people suspected of setting recent fires.

Indonesia has deployed thousands of firefighters on the ground in Kalimantan, as well as aircraft to "waterbomb" the blazes from above, Rizal Irawan, deputy for environmental law enforcement at the Ministry of Environment, was quoted as saying by Antara news agency, according to com and The Straits Times. Cloud seeding operations in Sarawak were scheduled for September 3 to 5 to replenish reservoirs that were seeing low water levels due to prolonged dryness, the New Straits Times reported.

Outlook

El Niño—the naturally occurring pattern that shifts winds, air pressure, and rainfall worldwide—appears headed for "super" strength, said Helena Varkkey, a specialist on transboundary haze at Universiti Malaya, as reported by Al Jazeera. Jayaprakash Muralitharan, a Malaysian atmospheric scientist, said the worst was still to come. "El Niño came in and made conditions drier. Now you have the extreme drying of the land," he told Al Jazeera. What looks extinguished on the surface can smoulder underground for weeks and flare up again, and nothing short of sustained rain will soak the soil enough to put it out. "Human intervention now is only a temporary solution," Muralitharan said. "It would go on until end of September or October when the rain comes in. I hope that rain comes in by then."