Fight the fires, flour power and 40 centimeters

Indonesia has devised an unusual plan to combat forest fires by dropping cassava flour from helicopters, despite the fact that aerial retardants typically use plant polysaccharides as thickeners, not as active suppressing agents. The country's peatlands are actually sinking out of existence, governed by a seemingly insignificant 40-centimeter water rule that aerial stunts cannot fix.

This oversight has led to a desperate situation, as President Prabowo Subianto suggested this unconventional approach during a coordination meeting in Palembang. The chemistry behind the idea is not absurd, but misplaced, as starch only helps water stick to fires and does not improve their extinguishing capabilities. The real issue lies in the altitude at which these fires smolder deep underground in the organic column, making ground crews' efforts futile after dark.

The only true solution is maintaining a water table no deeper than 40 centimeters below the surface, but this infrastructure has been neglected. Seven out of 10 canal blocks inspected by NGO Pantau Gambut were broken, and water tables have lingered below safety thresholds at 52 percent of monitored sites. The Forestry Ministry has also recorded a surge in burned hectares, nearly doubling in a single month, while aerial cassava bombing has not received the necessary funding for ground pumps and firebreaks.