Indonesian police have arrested 72 people suspected of deliberately starting forest and peatland fires, as the country’s worst wildfire season since 2015 scorched approximately 285,000 hectares and sent toxic haze across the border into Malaysia.
The arrests, announced on Sunday, were connected to 89 fire cases spanning five provinces on Borneo and four on Sumatra. Most suspects are accused of clearing land for plantations by burning, a practice Indonesian law prohibits but that has persisted across administrations despite repeated zero-tolerance pledges.
Record Hotspots and El Nino Surge
Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry detected 11,908 fire hotspots in a single 24-hour period last week, nearly double the 6,352 recorded the day before. Satellite monitoring platform FireWatch had recorded more than 154,000 hotspots nationwide as of August 11, a 60 percent increase from July and higher than totals at comparable points in the devastating 2019 and 2023 fire seasons.
Forest-monitoring group Madani Berkelanjutan estimated that roughly 182,000 hectares burned in July alone, nearly double the area scorched across the entire 2019 season. Indonesia’s meteorological agency BMKG warned that August and September represent the most critical months, with peak dryness and strong winds creating ideal conditions for fire spread.
Cross-Border Haze Closes Malaysian Schools
Malaysia’s Sarawak state shuttered nearly 600 schools, affecting about 200,000 students, after air quality readings hit very unhealthy levels on Friday. Visibility in some parts of South Sumatra dropped to 10 meters. Singapore’s government said its haze task force was ready to activate if air quality in the city-state deteriorated.
Thirty helicopters were deployed for water-bombing operations over Kalimantan, with another 22 operating over Sumatra. Indonesia also resumed cloud-seeding flights on Sunday as part of its emergency response.
We will not stop at the perpetrators on the ground, Jakarta officials stated, indicating the probe could expand to companies that may have financed the land clearing.
Indonesian environmental groups have noted that prior crackdowns have not led to lasting changes in enforcement. The 285,000-hectare toll already approaches the catastrophic 2015 season, when more than 600,000 hectares burned under a severe El Nino event.
An estimated 22,200 hectares of burned territory fell within key biodiversity areas, raising alarm among conservationists about long-term ecological damage. The fires make Indonesia one of the world’s largest per-capita greenhouse gas emitters during severe seasons.
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