Indonesia Sends 1,500 Troops, 6 Helicopters to Borneo as Wildfires Scorch 200,000 Hectares
Updated
Updated · Al Jazeera English · Aug 22
Indonesia Sends 1,500 Troops, 6 Helicopters to Borneo as Wildfires Scorch 200,000 Hectares
3 articles · Updated · Al Jazeera English · Aug 22
Summary
President Prabowo Subianto ordered 1,500 additional soldiers and six helicopters into Kalimantan on Saturday to reinforce firefighting and waterbombing operations.
At least 200,000 hectares have burned across Borneo this year, with officials blaming dry conditions linked to a powerful El Nino pattern.
Thick smog has pushed local governments in Indonesian Borneo to urge residents to wear masks and stay indoors, while smoke also drifted into Malaysia's Sarawak state, where six areas logged unhealthy air quality.
The burned area already exceeds Indonesia's 2019 and 2023 El Nino fire seasons, though it remains below the devastation seen in 2015; officials say climate change can intensify El Nino-driven drought and fire risk.
As El Niño worsens, can military waterbombing truly stop Indonesia's peatland infernos, or is the ecological damage already irreversible?
What secrets lie beneath Borneo's smoldering peatlands that make these massive wildfires nearly impossible to extinguish despite heavy military intervention?