Indonesia has intensified efforts to extinguish forest and land fires in six priority provinces, sending aircraft to conduct cloud-seeding operations as authorities try to bring rain and limit haze blanketing the region.
El Niño is strengthening, bringing a longer and harsher dry season this year for the country, increasing the risk of drought, wildfires and worsening air pollution.
Data from Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry showed fires burned 107,465 hectares of land between January and June, a 110 per cent increase from the same period in 2023 when the last significant impact of El Niño was felt in the country.
“We are on alert because the weather conditions really make it possible for these fires to become larger,” Chief Security Minister Djamari Chaniago told reporters Monday.
“There are indications that El Niño has reached its peak intensity in Indonesia,” Djamari said.
The government has designated six priority provinces for fire containment efforts, with Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra on Sumatra Island and West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan on Borneo.
There were also reports of fires in other parts of the country, including Java, Papua and Nusa Tenggara .
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Classes for all students were moved online in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan, after air quality deteriorated due to haze, the city’s mayor said.
Authorities had deployed 43 helicopters and 15 fixed-wing aircraft to combat the fires, Djamari said.
Operations to seed the clouds have also been carried out, using salt flares to induce rain. “But efforts have been hampered by a lack of rain-bearing clouds,” he said.
We therefore watch the weather very closely, even the smallest changes in it. “When there’s a good chance of getting rain clouds, we do cloud-seeding operations straight away,” he said.
The haze’s effects have also spilled over Indonesia’s borders. Air quality readings in 11 locations in Malaysia’s Sarawak State, which shares Borneo island with Indonesia, were unhealthy on Tuesday, the country’s environmental department said.
The state education department of Sarawak told schools to halt outdoor activities when the temperature was too high or the air quality index was above 100.
Meanwhile, a fire at Mount Bromo National Park in East Java Province that destroyed at least 899 hectares on Java Island had been mostly put out, local disaster mitigation agency Chief Gatot Soebroto said.
Some 150 personnel remained deployed on Tuesday to tackle the remaining blaze, which was still burning across at least two hectares.
