Indonesia doing 'everything' but still struggling to curb fires

Indonesia is making every effort to combat the extensive forest fires, yet the country's firefighting efforts continue to face significant challenges. Dozens of planes and thousands of personnel are grappling with the blazes, which have persisted for weeks in Borneo and Sumatra. These fires have not only engulfed large portions of Indonesia but also spread toxic haze into neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.

The government has deployed 64 aircraft and 54,000 personnel to the affected islands since last month to extinguish the fires through water bombing and other means.

Indonesia's extensive territory and the complexities of peatlands make the fire containment process particularly difficult. Daniel Sinyor, a spokesman for the disaster mitigation agency in West Kalimantan, highlighted the varying depths of fires burning within the peat soils, further complicating the situation. Another hurdle is the scarcity of water sources available to the ground task force. Many water sources dwindle or disappear entirely in fire-affected regions.

Indigenous and civil society groups in West Kalimantan recently filed a class action lawsuit against the government, accusing officials, including the president and the governor, of failing to prevent the fire disaster. This recurring issue suggests that the defendants were aware of the potential haze disaster and fire risks. Last month, around 350 members of Japan's Self-Defence Forces arrived in West Kalimantan to provide support for firefighting efforts.

President Prabowo Subianto has also signaled his readiness to accept assistance from Malaysia. Indonesia typically faces wildfires during the dry season, which generally spans from July to October. However, this year's fires are particularly intense, coinciding with what is anticipated to be the strongest El Nino climate phenomenon in decades.

Experts attribute the severity of the fires 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, more than 202,000 hectares of land were burned across Indonesia, with the Nusantara Atlas project estimating the figure to be nearly 300,000 hectares. When accounting for August, the total affected area is estimated to be close to 896,000 hectares.