What’s Happening in Kalimantan right now?

Kalimantan has been shrouded in thick haze as the country continues to battle thousands of wildfires. Severe forest and land fires have escalated across Kalimantan due to fires spreading, covering the cities in thick haze and poor air quality.

Head of the South Kalimantan Forestry Service Fathimatuzzahra said the thick haze observed over the past week has mainly affected Landasan Ulin and Liang Anggang in Banjarbaru, as well as Bati Bati in Tanah Laut Regency. “This is because these areas are peatlands that are on fire,” Fathimatuzzahra said when contacted on Thursday (20/8).

The Everyday Cost of Kalimantan’s Fires

Forest and land fires have engulfed the island of Kalimantan, causing residents to breathe in haze. Visibility has fallen to just 10 meters in Banjarbaru and South Kalimantan, children wear masks to school. They are also prohibited from doing activities outside the classroom. Residents report reduced visibility due to the haze. In Pontianak, schools have shifted to online learning because air quality remains too dangerous for children to attend in person, even after rainfall temporarily eased conditions.

Residents describe the smoke as inescapable. One mother in Kuching said the air had turned thick and white, with visibility from her home dropping to roughly a kilometer, adding that the city had not seen blue sky in over a month. In Pontianak itself, air quality readings have spiked to hazardous extremes, with the index reaching 593 at one point this year.

The disruption extends to transportation and public services too. Smoke has grounded flights, delayed officials, and forced hospitals and health authorities to warn vulnerable groups (children, older adults, pregnant people, and those with respiratory or cardiovascular conditions) to stay indoors, wear well-fitted masks outdoors, and run air purifiers at home.

Wildlife hasn’t been spared either. West Kalimantan is also home to wild orangutan populations living in national parks and conservation areas, putting endangered species directly in harm’s way alongside human communities. Throughout August 2026, the Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI), together with the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), recorded the rescue of seven to nine individual orangutans affected by forest and land fires in Ketapang Regency.

Nationwide, fires have already burned more than 202,000 hectares from January through June alone, nearly three times the land area of Singapore with tens of thousands more hectares lost in July.

Hotspots detected in Kalimantan

Intense dry seasons, worsened by climate anomalies like El Niño, have made this year’s fires the worst since 2015. A Malaysian haze specialist warned that the intensifying El Niño means hotter and drier conditions, so any fires that happen will have a bigger and longer regional impact. NOAA-20 satellite imagery displayed via NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Worldview platform shows the island of Kalimantan covered in thick smoke from forest and land fires. According to detik.com, the image was captured by the NOAA-20 satellite on August 20, 2026.

As of August (19/8), the BMKG (Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency) detected 1,106 high-confidence hotspots in Kalimantan, comprising 521 in West Kalimantan, 424 in Central Kalimantan, 40 in South Kalimantan, 103 in East Kalimantan, and 18 in North Kalimantan. Meanwhile, 34 hotspots were detected in Sumatra, consisting of 7 in Riau, 2 in Jambi, 5 in South Sumatra, 1 in Riau Islands, 15 in Bangka Belitung Islands, and 4 in Lampung. Additionally, 179 hotspots were detected in Papua, comprising 2 in Papua, 14 in West Papua, 1 in Southwest Papua, 8 in Highland Papua, 144 in South Papua, and 10 in Central Papua.

A Regional Crisis

Forest and peat fires are an annual problem in Indonesia, in past years Indonesian officials have even publicly denied responsibility when Malaysia formally complained about cross-border haze. The crisis has also reignited tension with Indonesia’s neighbors. NASA highlighted increased forest and land fire activity in Indonesia using imagery from the Aqua satellite on September 1, 2026. Smoke was observed blanketing parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, while peatland fires proved difficult to extinguish due to their ability to spread underground. By September 5, Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed smoke had reached Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and even the Philippines, including Manila. The ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre activated a Level 3 alert, the highest transboundary haze alert, for southern Southeast Asia. Malaysia has been hit especially hard, they declared an air quality emergency as haze reached critical levels, and Kuching briefly became the most polluted major city in the world, with an AQI of 399, in the hazardous range. Since then, Malaysia has begun cloud-seeding operations in Sarawak and sought permission to use Indonesian airspace to do so, while schools in Pontianak were still holding online classes as of September 7 due to dangerous air quality. 

What’s the Cause of the Fire?

Massive forest and land fires in Kalimantan are primarily caused by extreme dry weather from BMKG due to El Niño, peatland degradation, and intentional land clearing. El Niño is a climate pattern where sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become much warmer than average. According to the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), this warming shifts rain clouds away from Indonesia and toward the central Pacific.

1. Intentional clearing: Traditional and illegal clearing methods frequently use controlled or open burning to prepare plots for agriculture or small-scale farming, which can easily spiral out of control in dried-out terrain.
2. Extreme weather and climate: Severe dry seasons, intensified by climate anomalies like El Nino, dry out surface vegetation and upper soil layers, making the landscape highly flammable.
3. Peatland drainage and canal building: Large-scale commercial plantations and infrastructure projects drain water from vast underground peat areas through artificial canals. When peat dries out, it loses its natural wetness and burns both above and deep underground, making fires extremely difficult to extinguish.

Government Response

The South Kalimantan Forestry Service has continued firefighting and suppression operations in an effort to contain the fires and reduce the haze. The operation involves provincial and regency or city Disaster Management Agencies (BPBDs), Manggala Agni firefighting teams, and private fire suppression groups. However, the peak of the dry season has complicated firefighting efforts by limiting the availability of water.

Firefighting efforts also face severe logistical hurdles. Local water sources are dwindling, and thick smoke often grounds the aircraft needed for water-bombing operations on September 3, smoke reduced visibility at Supadio Airport in West Kalimantan to about 100 meters, preventing an aircraft carrying the Forestry Minister himself from landing. 

Why are Kalimantan’s Peatlands So Difficult to Save?

Indonesia struggles to stop recurrent fires in Kalimantan. Combustible drained peatlands and illegal land-clearing for plantations create ideal conditions for fires to start and spread. Intense dry seasons, worsened by climate anomalies like El Niño, make the situation worse. Firefighting efforts also face severe logistical hurdles. Local water sources are dwindling, and thick smoke often grounds the aircraft needed for water-bombing operations.

From the Instagram account @geologipedia, the fires in Kalimantan differ from typical forest fires that burn trees and undergrowth on the surface. The fire hotspots spread and stayed beneath the ground. “Fires at numerous locations across Kalimantan spread and stayed beneath the soil surface, sometimes for days and re-emerging even after appearing to have been extinguished. A crucial element of this phenomenon lies in the dominant soil type: peat,” they wrote in their post. Geologically, peat is an unconsolidated organic sediment formed from the accumulation of plant remains in a waterlogged environment. This characteristic restricts oxygen entry, creating an anaerobic environment that slows the decomposition of organic material. When the accumulation of organic material outpaces its decomposition, peat continues to build up over thousands of years.

“Natural peat is generally water-saturated and difficult to ignite. The risk increases when the groundwater table drops due to drainage and prolonged dry spells. These conditions reduce the peat’s moisture content and increase its susceptibility to fire,” Geologipedia continued.

Reporter: Varadwina Clara Tsabitah

Editor: Elga Thalita Perangin Angin, Khayla Dinda Pradwina, Fernaldhy Rossi Armanda