Indonesia's 2026 Fire Crisis: El Niño, Haze, and a Test of Past Reforms
Massive fires have burned tens of thousands of hectares across Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo, as a strengthening El Niño worsens a fire season that experts say has not yet peaked. Indonesian forestry ministry data recorded nearly 94,000 hectares (232,000 acres) burned nationwide in July 2026 alone. Reuters reported a cumulative total of 107,465 hectares (265,552 acres) affected as of 11 August. New fire fronts kept emerging through the third week of August, including in Paser Regency and Gambut sub-district in Banjar Regency, South Kalimantan, according to BNPB, Indonesia's national disaster agency.
The haze has crossed national borders. On a Tuesday in mid-August, the air quality monitoring company IQAir rated Kuala Lumpur the most polluted city on earth, with Jakarta second. Nearly 600 schools in Sarawak, the Malaysian state on Borneo, closed due to hot and dry conditions. In Kalimantan itself, classes were suspended in some areas, with parents pressing schools to move to online learning. Social media posts documented large fires not only in Kalimantan and Sumatra but also in West Papua and Lombok, where a blaze destroyed the traditional Sade village over a weekend in August.
Conditions on the ground are severe. A resident named Suwadi in Indonesian Borneo told reporters he could barely see five metres ahead and that each breath felt "like smoking a cigarette." Indonesian health ministry data shows that roughly 5,000 people per week arrived at West Kalimantan emergency rooms with respiratory symptoms since July, a tenfold increase from the 500 weekly average recorded in the first half of 2026. The New York Times reported that the 2026 haze has contributed to roughly 100,000 premature deaths across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Indonesian authorities attribute the intensity of the blazes to what they describe as a "super" El Niño, expected to peak in September. El Niño is a recurring climate pattern driven by warmer-than-normal Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, which in Indonesia typically brings drier conditions and a longer dry season. Indonesia's weather agency anticipates the phenomenon persisting into early 2027, with the critical window for forest and land fires having begun in August. Experts caution that the dry season runs through October and rains capable of extinguishing the fires are unlikely before November.
The immediate cause of many fires is well-documented. Slash-and-burn land-clearing, a technique in which vegetation is cut and set alight to prepare terrain for agriculture, is widely used to ready land for palm oil plantations. Indonesia is the world's largest producer of palm oil. Indonesian police arrested 72 people in Borneo and Sumatra suspected of deliberately setting fires to clear land, with most accused of acting on behalf of plantation interests. On a Monday in August, President Prabowo Subianto ordered authorities to revoke the business permits of corporations suspected of directing land clearing, as reported by state news agency Antara. During a visit to the affected region, Prabowo pledged government resources including helicopters and water pumps to contain the fires.
The diplomatic response is following a familiar path. Malaysia and Brunei have agreed to raise the Kalimantan haze issue at ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, reviving a regional dispute mechanism that has historically struggled to produce binding enforcement outcomes. The 2002 ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, which Indonesia was slow to ratify, has provided a framework for cooperation but limited tools for compulsion.
The precedent is sobering. In 2015, another El Niño year, more than 6 million acres burned in Indonesia, and trans-boundary haze again blanketed Malaysia and Singapore. The 2015 crisis prompted legal reforms in Indonesia, including moratoria on peatland development and stricter penalties for fire-starters. Peatlands are waterlogged, carbon-rich soils that burn intensely and release enormous amounts of smoke when drained and ignited.
The broader context here is one of structural tension. The recurrence in 2026 raises the question of whether those post-2015 measures proved sufficient against a more powerful El Niño and the persistent economic incentives for cheap land conversion. Palm oil is a cornerstone of Indonesia's agricultural economy, and the profit calculus for smallholders and larger operators alike often favors burning over costlier mechanical clearing methods, particularly when enforcement across vast, remote terrain is uneven.
BNPB's operational reporting from mid-to-late August provides a granular picture of ongoing response efforts. The agency documented firefighting operations across multiple districts from 18 July through 23 August, including in Teluk Kimi, Nabire Kota, Nabire Barat, and Wanggar. A land and forest fire was logged on 15 August at 16:30 and 18:30 local time in Dukuh village. These dispatch records show the geographic breadth of the crisis, extending beyond Kalimantan to include fire events in Papua.
The convergence of a peaking El Niño, an agricultural calendar that incentivizes dry-season burning, and the structural challenge of enforcing restrictions across vast, difficult-to-monitor terrain places Indonesia in a familiar bind. The next two months, before monsoon rains are expected to arrive in November, will determine whether 2026 rivals or surpasses the catastrophic fire seasons of the past decade.
