Indonesia doing 'everything' but still struggling to curb fires

Indonesia is making every effort to combat massive forest fires, but officials say dozens of planes and thousands of personnel are still struggling to control them, according to a senior government official. Fires have been raging for weeks in Borneo and Sumatra, sending toxic haze across the country and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. The government has deployed 64 aircraft and 54,000 personnel since last month to tackle the blazes using water bombing, according to Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya.

The vast size of Indonesia and the challenges posed by peatlands make it difficult to contain the fires, said a senior official from West Kalimantan's disaster mitigation agency. The varying depths of the fires burning in the local peat soils further complicate the situation. Additionally, limited water sources on the ground make it hard for the task force to access water to extinguish the flames.

Indigenous and civil society groups in West Kalimantan have filed a class action lawsuit against the government, including the president and governor, for allegedly not preventing the fires. This recurring disaster is not new; it happens every year, proving that the defendants were aware of the potential haze disaster and the risks of forest and land fires.

Japan's Self-Defence Forces have sent 350 members to assist in firefighting efforts in West Kalimantan, and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has expressed willingness to accept help from Malaysia. Indonesia faces wildfires every year during the dry season, which typically runs from July to October. However, this year's blazes are more intense, coinciding with what is expected to be the strongest El Nino climate phenomenon in four decades.

Experts also blame climate change, decades of forest degradation, and slash-and-burn land-clearing practices for the more severe fires. Over 202,000 hectares of land have been burned in Indonesia between January and July, with estimates reaching nearly 896,000 hectares when including August.