Research: El Nino mostly to blame for Indonesian wildfires
JAKARTA: Wildfires that consumed vast swathes of Indonesia this year were driven largely by a strong El Nino, fuelled by climate change and decades of destruction of natural landscapes, researchers said on Friday.
Indonesian wildfires in 2026 were primarily caused by a strong El Nino phenomenon, according to a recent study by researchers from the World Weather Attribution group. The El Nino led to a significant lack of rainfall in the Southeast Asian archipelago from July to October, cutting seasonal rainfall by roughly half. This drought, exacerbated by climate change, made the atmosphere more conducive to fires, making the heat about 1.6°C hotter than normal due to human-induced warming from fossil fuel emissions.
The likelihood of such fire-prone conditions was also three times higher, as well as more intense. Deforestation and peatland drainage for agriculture, mining, and logging were also cited as major contributors to the disaster. The smoke from the fires resulted in hundreds of thousands of Indonesians falling ill, with many more in neighboring countries exposed to dangerously high levels of air pollution.
Over the past 30 years, Indonesia's landscapes have undergone dramatic changes, with extensive peatland drainage and deforestation creating extreme vulnerability to ignition. These findings underscore the importance of both reducing emissions and protecting forests and peatlands to mitigate future fire risks. So far in 2026, fires have burned through 2.88 million hectares, an area nearly 18 times the size of London, with the Indonesian government neither confirming nor rejecting the figure nor releasing its own estimate of the burned area since July.
Written by urgent.news from New Straits Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
