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View all search resultsForest fire still high in 2025 despite wetter dry season
Of at least 218,000 hectares with indications of being burned between January and August this year, nearly half were located in concession areas linked to oil palm, oil and gas and mineral mining businesses, a report discovered.
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Firefighters working at the scene of a fire on Feb. 15 at a peatland forest converted into oil palm plantation in Meulaboh, Aceh. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
W
hile Indonesia is experiencing a “wet dry season” with relatively high rainfalls, a recent independent analysis has revealed an increasing rate of forest and land fires across the country, particularly in oil palm plantation and energy concessions.
The analysis, launched by Jakarta-based environmental group Madani Berkelanjutan, found at least 218,000 hectares of land and forest, or an area larger than three Jakartas, have indications of being burned down between January and August.
Almost 100,000 ha were engulfed by fire in July alone, nearly twice the area burned in July 2023 when the country was hit by the El Niño weather phenomenon which resulted in a prolonged, hotter dry season.
Of the total figure, around 42 percent, or 80,000 ha, of burned land is located in concession areas linked to oil palm plantations, oil and gas industries and mineral mining.
For the analysis, Madani analyzed satellite imageries to monitor hotspots, or areas recorded over having higher temperatures compared to their surroundings. The similar method is also used by the Forestry Ministry to monitor potential forest fire sites for its official wildfire monitoring platform Sipongi, which recorded 6,000 ha less burned land than Madani in the same period.
Indonesia typically enters the dry season in April, with the month often marked with increasing rates of forest and land fires due to greater exposure to heat and strong winds. But this year, the archipelago saw a shorter and wetter dry season, with rainfall intensity relatively stable and increasing over the past few months.
“This further supports that wildfires have increasingly become anthropogenic or human-made, with more fires detected in concession areas,” Madani analyst Fadli Ahmad Naufal said on Wednesday.
