Indonesia doing ‘everything’ but still struggling to curb fires

Indonesia is making every effort to combat massive forest fires, yet officials acknowledge that thousands of personnel and airplanes are still struggling to control them. Large-scale blazes have engulfed parts of Borneo and Sumatra, releasing toxic haze into the air, impacting neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. Since last month, the government has deployed 64 aircraft and 54,000 ground personnel to aid in the firefighting efforts.

Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya stressed that every resource, both aerial and terrestrial, is being utilized to extinguish the fires, mitigate smoke's impact, and most crucially, safeguard public health from the threat of forest and land fires. The sheer expanse of the nation and the challenging nature of peatlands complicate efforts to extinguish these infernos across various regions.

Daniel Sinyor, a spokesman for West Kalimantan's disaster mitigation agency, highlighted the complexity stemming from the differing depths of fires burning within local peat soils. The scarcity of water sources further exacerbates the challenge, as many sources dwindle or vanish in the fire-stricken areas.

Indigenous and civil society groups in West Kalimantan recently filed a class action lawsuit against the government, including the president and governor, for allegedly neglecting prevention measures. The recurring nature of the disaster underscores the culpability of these authorities, according to their lawyer, Glorio Sanen.

Japan's Self-Defence Forces, comprising 350 troops, arrived in West Kalimantan this month to bolster firefighting operations. President Prabowo Subianto has also signaled willingness to accept assistance from Malaysia. Indonesia's struggle with wildfires during the dry season, typically July to October, has been particularly grimmer this year, coinciding with the anticipated strongest El Nino climate phenomenon in four decades.

Experts attribute the severity to climate change, decades of forest degradation, and slash-and-burn land-clearing practices that have altered the naturally fire-resistant landscape. Between January and July, over 202,000 hectares of land were scorched in Indonesia, as reported by the government, with the Nusantara Atlas project estimating nearly 300,000 hectares, and nearly 896,000 hectares when accounting for August.