The use of fire in swidden agriculture is not as simple as just burning down the forest. It presents an interconnected relationship between ecological knowledge and socialcultural values. However, swiddening communities are often accused as being one of the contributors to catastrophic fires in Indonesia. In addition, they often become victims of reactive fire policies (e.g. the prohibition of using fire).

Swidden agriculture is part of the livelihood (either fully or partly) for 14 to 34 million rural people in Southeast Asia. Fire swiddening has long been a cornerstone of agricultural practices in Indonesia. In general, swiddening is a practice of subsistence agriculture (e.g. to plant rice) to feed local communities. It involves converting secondary forest areas into fields for planting crops using slash and burn techniques to clear the area of trees or other vegetation. This practice is very common in Kalimantan, including by indigenous Dayak communities. For them, ecological aspects and sociocultural values are fundamental factors in practicing swidden agriculture.

Ecological aspects in practicing swidden agriculture among Dayak communities represents their perception of the conditions of the forests and soils around them. They hold ecological knowledge of rotating the conversion of secondary forest into rice fields based on time periods (e.g. yearly or every five years), so that vegetation of plants and trees in abandoned fields can grow back. Depending on the interval between rotations, swiddening provides time for ecosystems to naturally restore themselves, for instance by using chemical fertilizer.