Indonesia deploys 14,000 firefighters to combat Borneo and Sumatra wildfires

Indonesia has deployed thousands of firefighters to combat massive forest fires spreading across Borneo and Sumatra. The National Disaster Management Authority reported that over 14,000 firefighters have been deployed in West Kalimantan alone, where they successfully extinguished fires covering nearly 4,300 stremmata (approximately 430 hectares) of land.

In Central Kalimantan, authorities extinguished fires covering 1,970 stremmata. Officials are utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with thermal cameras to detect and address underground hotspots. Special attention is being directed toward burning peatlands in West Kalimantan, which require extended intervention and cooling processes to prevent reignition.

The resulting thick smoke and haze have caused air quality to reach “dangerous” and “unhealthy” levels, significantly reducing visibility to less than one kilometer in some areas. The haze is moving toward Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. As a precaution, schools in the affected provinces have remained closed.