Indonesia's 2026 Peatland Fires: A Climate Crisis Unfolds
Indonesia is facing a wildfire disaster driven by a "Super El Niño," with thousands of active fire hotspots across the archipelago and the region's worst transboundary haze crisis in over a decade. BBC
The fires are concentrated heavily on peatland, burning across Borneo, Sumatra, and other Indonesian islands. Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry reported that approximately 50 percent of fire-affected areas in 2026 are located within peatland. The Nature Conservancy In Borneo, the blazes are consuming one of the world's largest tropical peatland ecosystems — a 4.5-million-hectare stretch of forest and swamp that, when waterlogged, serves as a vast ancient carbon reservoir. BBC
The Carbon Consequences
The emissions are already severe. BBC reported that Indonesia's fires had produced an estimated 58 million tonnes of carbon so far in 2026, nearly double the annual average of 32 million tonnes. BBC For context, the 2015 fire event — also tied to a strong El Niño — saw carbon emissions from tropical peatland burning estimated at roughly 250 Tg (teragrams). ScienceDirect
Peat fires are far more carbon-intensive than other wildfire types. By one estimate, they generate three times more fine particulate matter, three times more organic carbon, and two times more methane and carbon monoxide than non-peat fires. NASA Science When peatlands ignite, they risk releasing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane into the atmosphere. BBC
The scale of the stored carbon is considerable. Tropical peatlands in Indonesia are among the world's most effective natural carbon sinks; in Kalimantan, peat deposits have been found exceeding 20 metres in depth. A single hectare of peatland over 20 metres deep can hold more than 6,000 tonnes of carbon, roughly equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of 4,800 cars. BBC
Dr Nisa Novita, a peatland researcher at Indonesian conservation NGO Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (YKAN), has warned that these deep peat deposits represent centuries-old carbon stocks now under direct threat from combustion. BBC
Human and Ecological Toll
Two volunteers died while battling an Indonesian wildfire during the disaster response, as reported by BBC in August 2026. BBC In Borneo, fires have destroyed part of the habitat of hundreds of orangutans, putting the species' survival at heightened risk. BBC
Air quality has deteriorated to hazardous levels across the region. During the current fire events, the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Indonesia has at times reached as high as 1,000. NASA Earth Smoke from forest and peatland fires has pushed air quality in parts of Malaysian Borneo to hazardous levels, with the toxic haze also spreading into Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Al Jazeera BBC
The Root Cause
Southeast Asian haze is caused by the burning of forests and peatland in Indonesia to clear land for crop cultivation, predominantly lucrative palm oil. BBC BBC described Indonesia's peatland fires as threatening to activate so-called "carbon bombs": enormous carbon reservoirs stored beneath the peatlands, accumulated over thousands of years. BBC
The broader context here is one of compounding climate feedbacks. El Niño events intensify drought conditions across maritime Southeast Asia, drying out peatlands that function as carbon sinks only when waterlogged. Once dried and ignited, peat fires burn below ground level, making them extraordinarily difficult to extinguish and capable of smoldering for months. The 2026 "Super El Niño" has amplified this dynamic, producing fire intensity that has already pushed carbon emissions well beyond recent norms, with the burning season not yet concluded.
The 2015 precedent is instructive for what may follow. That year's strong El Niño-driven peatland fire event produced emissions estimated at 250 Tg of carbon, drawing international condemnation and prompting Indonesia to establish its Peatland Restoration Agency. The current event's trajectory, with 58 million tonnes already recorded and haze spreading across four countries, suggests a crisis on a comparable or greater scale, with the added backdrop of a global climate system more sensitized to tropical carbon flux than it was a decade ago.
What distinguishes the 2026 fires is the convergence of extreme climatological forcing with persistent land-use pressures. Palm oil-driven land clearing remains the primary ignition pathway, and while policy interventions since 2015 have aimed at restricting peatland conversion, roughly half of this year's fire-affected areas are still located within peatland zones. The gap between regulatory intent and ground-level outcomes is visible in the data.
