Dwi Sujatmoko and Volunteer Firefighters Battle Indonesia's Worst Transnational Haze Crisis in Over a Decade

The fires are fueled by a "Super El Niño" event causing severe drought conditions, resulting in a transnational haze crisis that is the region's worst in more than ten years. These fires are burning through one of the world's largest tropical peatland ecosystems. When these peatlands are drained or burned, they release millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane into the atmosphere. The pollution has caused air pollution indices to soar to unhealthy extremes across Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Between July and August, Indonesia's Health Ministry recorded over 50,000 cases of respiratory infections linked to the fires, including more than 12,000 children under the age of five. Volunteer firefighters are using hand tools, carts, and portable fire pumps to saturate the ground. They face persistent reignitions from hidden fuel buried in the peat swamp. While industrial-scale development projects have historically drained the peatlands, making them more fire-prone, indigenous communities have often been used as scapegoats for triggering the blazes through traditional farming methods.