West Kalimantan Fires Threaten 60 Rescued Orangutans as August Hotspots Triple From a Year Earlier
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 14
West Kalimantan Fires Threaten 60 Rescued Orangutans as August Hotspots Triple From a Year Earlier
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 14
Summary
Flames closed to within 100 metres of the Yiari rehabilitation centre this week, forcing staff to move 60 rescued orangutans into enclosures deeper inside the site; all animals were safe by Thursday evening.
After 40 days without rain, fires in West Kalimantan spread rapidly under hot, dry and windy conditions intensified by El Niño and climate change, with one blaze advancing from 1 kilometre away in days.
Indonesia logged more than three times as many forest-fire hotspots in the first 13 days of August as in all of August last year, after a record January-July period.
Authorities water-bombed nearby forest and centre staff fought the fire through the night as smoke worsened air quality; Yiari is seeking funds for more firefighting equipment.
The meteorological agency expects dry conditions to persist, and officials warned the peak fire season usually comes in September and October.
With Indonesia's extreme 2026 wildfires raging, can underfunded rescue centers save critically endangered orangutans before their remaining habitats turn to ash?
As toxic haze blankets Southeast Asia, could groundbreaking peatland restoration techniques finally break Indonesia's devastating human-driven fire cycle?