Borneo Wildfires Char 200,000 Hectares, Spreading Haze Across 5 Countries
Updated
Updated · BBC.com · Sep 6
Borneo Wildfires Char 200,000 Hectares, Spreading Haze Across 5 Countries
2 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Sep 6
Summary
Some 200,000 hectares of forest and farmland have burned across Indonesian Borneo since early July, with thousands of hotspots driving Southeast Asia's worst transnational haze crisis in more than a decade.
Super El Niño drought has intensified fires in one of the world's largest tropical peatland systems—4.5 million hectares—where deep, drained peat can rapidly release huge stores of carbon and keep smouldering underground.
Air pollution has reached nearly 75 times the WHO guideline in some areas, and Indonesia recorded more than 50,000 fire-linked respiratory infections in July and August, including over 12,000 children under five.
Volunteer firefighters using hand tools, pumps and improvised irrigation are battling severe water shortages and repeated reignitions; two volunteers in Central Kalimantan have died after their health deteriorated.
Researchers say decades of deforestation, plantation expansion and peatland drainage—not just traditional burning—have made Kalimantan, which lost nearly 160,000 hectares of forest in 2025, far more fire-prone.