Indonesia haze spreads across region as firefighters race to contain wildfires

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - JAKARTA — Indonesia is racing to contain wildfires that have burned more than 107,000 hectares of land nationwide.

Authorities have deployed cloud-seeding aircraft to help extinguish the fires, while some schools in affected provinces have suspended classes for three consecutive days.

Indonesia, like other parts of South East Asia, is facing a longer hot and dry season this year fuelled by a more intense El Nino climate event, which some have nicknamed the "Godzilla" El Nino.

The haze has also blanketed parts of Malaysia, pushing the air pollution index in a small town in the state of Sarawak to an "unhealthy" level of 195 on Wednesday.

Indonesian authorities are focusing their firefighting efforts on six provinces – including Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and Riau – that have vast areas of peatland and are vulnerable to fire during the annual dry season.

A resident in Central Kalimantan told BBC he had been experiencing wildfires "for more than a month".

"The smoke has become quite thick. When we step outside, our eyes start to sting. The smell of the smoke is also quite strong," says Darwin Romy, an indigenous Dayak who lives in the province's largest city Palangka Raya.

"The flames have already gotten close to residential areas ... The problem is that water is starting to run dry here [for firefighting]," he says.

The mayor of the city of Pontianak in West Kalimantan said students would attend lessons online for as long as the fires continued.

"We have started to feel it, especially at night and in the morning, as haze has already blanketed the city of Pontianak," the mayor, Edi Rusdi Kamtono, said on Monday, as reported by AFP news agency.

In addition to the six worst-hit provinces, a fire burned for nearly a week at Mount Bromo National Park in East Java, before it was put out on Monday.

Firefighters have mostly contained a wildfire that has scorched a large area of the national park, though crews are battling several remaining hot spots in the popular tourist destination, authorities said.

The fire impacted nearly 900 hectares (2,224 acres) across the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park as of Tuesday, after large areas of dry grassland, vegetation and protected edelweiss flowers burned in 36 hot spots, said Rudijanta Tjahja Nugraha, head of the park.

The volcanic landscape of Mount Bromo, one of Indonesia’s best-known attractions, is in the impacted area and has been closed as firefighters work to prevent the blaze from spreading in the conservation zone.

As of Tuesday, active hot spots remain in two locations within the park: Puncak 30, a popular viewpoint for tourists visiting the volcanic landscape of Mount Bromo, and Dengklek, an area where the volcano monitoring post is located, said Suharyanto, the head of National Disaster Management Agency, or BNPB.

Teams have been working to prevent flare-ups on the ground and with aerial operations, Nugraha said.

Authorities have also warned of new hotspots near the caldera of Mount Bromo, which is an active volcano.

The official cause of the fire is still under investigation, but local authorities say it may have been due to carelessness.

The haze has spread to neighbouring Malaysia. The small town of Serian in Sarawak logged the state's highest Air Pollutant Index (API) reading of 195 on Wednesday morning.

An API reading of 101 to 200 is deemed "unhealthy", a reading of 201 to 300 is deemed "very unhealthy", while anything above 301 is considered "hazardous".

At least nine areas across Sarawak recorded unhealthy API readings as of Wednesday, according to Malaysian media reports.