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View all search resultsRegional haze persists as Japan ends fire aid
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A worker pushes a wheelbarrow through a public cemetery blanketed in thick smoke haze caused by forest and land fires in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan on Sept. 30, 2026. Indonesia has experienced major wildfires, while the warming El Nino weather pattern, which started in June and is due to peak later this year, could drive more fires in southeast Asia. (AFP/Reina)
I
ndonesia’s forest and peatland fires, which have caused air quality to deteriorate in neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, continue to intensify despite stepped-up firefighting efforts, including recent aerial assistance from Japan.
Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur was among the world’s most polluted major cities on Wednesday, with its air quality index reading 166, above the 150-point threshold for “unhealthy” air, according to Swiss environmental technology company IQAir.
Singapore ranked third on the same day, with an air quality reading of 155. The Singaporean National Environment Agency (NEA) said on Thursday that it continued to observe moderate to dense smoke plumes over southern Sumatra and Kalimantan drifting toward the city-state.
The deterioration coincided with a sharp increase in fires across Indonesia. In Tuesday evening, the Forestry Ministry had detected 893 high-confidence hot spots across six provinces in Sumatra and Kalimatan, about 600 more than the previous day.
South Sumatra recorded the highest number of hot spots. On Friday, air quality at four monitoring stations in the province, including in the capital Palembang, were classified as “hazardous”, the worst category on IQAir’s six-tier index.
Read also: Cross-border crises test Indonesia’s regional credibility
The latest escalation came as three Japanese water-bombing helicopters completed on Tuesday a roughly two-week mission in Kalimantan, following Indonesia’s request for assistance in late August.
