Environment & Climate 2 min read 50m ago · Updated August 25, 2026 at 04:57 UTC

Indonesia Wildfires Blanket Borneo

Wildfires in Indonesia's Kalimantan have burned tens of thousands of acres, severely reducing visibility and air quality for local residents.
Smoke from the blazes has crossed into Malaysia and prompted Singapore to issue an alert, underlining the regional scale of the crisis.
One Borneo resident described breathing the haze as feeling 'like smoking a cigarette', with conditions reported to be worsening amid a super El Niño event.

Wildfires tearing through Indonesia's Kalimantan region have razed tens of thousands of acres, blanketing Indonesian Borneo in a suffocating haze that has drifted into Malaysia and placed Singapore on alert.

Residents struggle to breathe

For Suwadi, a resident of Indonesian Borneo, the scale of the crisis is viscerally immediate. Stepping outside his home, he says he can barely see five metres ahead. Each breath, in his words, feels "like smoking a cigarette." His account reflects conditions being experienced across a region where the combination of intensifying blazes and stagnant air has rendered the outdoors hostile.

Regional spread raises concern

The smoke has not remained confined to Indonesian territory. Haze from the Kalimantan fires has reached neighbouring Malaysia, and Singapore — separated from Borneo by the Strait of Malacca — has been put on alert. The cross-border spread of pollution underscores the regional dimension of a crisis rooted in localised land conditions but carrying consequences far beyond Indonesia's borders. The fires are reported to be intensifying amid what has been described as a super El Niño weather event, though the precise contribution of that climatic phenomenon to the current outbreak has not been independently confirmed in the available source material.

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The situation in Kalimantan echoes patterns seen elsewhere in the region. Earlier this season, wildfires in West Kalimantan were already threatening rescued orangutans, pointing to a prolonged fire season with consequences for both human populations and wildlife. The immediate priority, as conditions remain unresolved, is the health and safety of communities across the affected provinces — and the extent of the haze's spread into neighbouring countries will depend heavily on whether the blazes can be contained.

##IndonesiaWildfires ##Kalimantan ##ElNino

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