Indonesia Remains on High Alert as Wildfires Persist Despite Declining Hotspots

Indonesia remains on high alert for wildfires despite a decline in hotspots over the past week, as scattered rainfall has proved insufficient to extinguish the blazes, a disaster agency official said on Thursday. Meanwhile, students on Borneo island staged protests over the government’s response to the crisis.

Indonesia is battling its most severe forest fires in 11 years, with the El Niño weather phenomenon driving up temperatures and leaving vast areas of forest and peatland increasingly vulnerable to fires.

The persistent blazes have contributed to hundreds of thousands of cases of respiratory illness in Indonesia and severely affected air quality in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia. The cross-border haze has drawn widespread criticism across the region.

Data from the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring service showed that carbon dioxide emissions from Indonesian fires reached 14.44 million metric tonnes between October 15 and October 21, down from 22.22 million tonnes in the preceding seven days.

The number of high-confidence fire hotspots fell to 565 on Thursday, according to Indonesia’s forest ministry monitoring platform, Sipongi, compared with more than 1,200 on October 14.

“Based on the latest developments, the number of hotspots has shown a decline; however, the trend remains volatile and is not yet uniform across all regions,” Berton Panjaitan, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency, told Reuters.

Indonesia has deployed more than 69,000 firefighting personnel, up from approximately 44,000 in mid-September, alongside around 50 aircraft for water-bombing missions and weather modification operations.

Authorities are also testing new firefighting techniques, including specialised chemicals and the use of dry ice in cloud-seeding operations.

The country’s dry season began earlier than usual this year and has lasted longer than expected. Although the rainy season typically begins in October, Indonesia’s weather agency has forecast a delay until November.

“The potential for new hotspots to emerge persists, especially if rainfall remains uneven and the sources of the fires have not been fully addressed,” Berton said.

At least 100 university students protested at the regional legislative assembly in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, demanding more concrete government action to extinguish the fires, according to footage broadcast by a local news channel.

Hundreds of other students demonstrated on Wednesday in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, and Samarinda, East Kalimantan, to protest the local governments’ handling of the crisis, local media reported.

Berton said authorities would continue firefighting operations and intensify patrols to prevent further outbreaks.

“The goal is to prevent new fires and ensure that fires that have been extinguished do not reignite,” he added.