A white pickup truck driving on a road through a forest fire

Volunteers Fight Indonesia's Peat Fires as Smoke Spreads

natureSep 12, 2026·294 words·3 min read

Thousands of volunteer firefighters in Indonesian Borneo are fighting huge peatland fires that have spread toxic smoke across South East Asia. Many of the volunteers are Indigenous Dayak or Banjar people, and they have spent more than a month on the fire front in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island, using hand tools and small pumps. About 200,000 hectares of forest and farmland have burned there since early July.

The land is very dry because of a strong weather pattern called El Niño. Peat is a soft soil made of old plants. It holds a lot of carbon from thousands of years ago. When peat burns, all this carbon goes into the air, so experts call peatlands "carbon bombs". But many peatlands were drained – the water was taken out – to make space for plantations, so now they burn easily. Police have arrested 72 people suspected of starting fires.

The smoke has reached Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines. In some places, the air pollution was almost 75 times higher than the level the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends. In Indonesia, more than 50,000 people got breathing infections. Two volunteers have died. Reports say their health got worse while they fought the fires. Nine orangutans were moved to safety. Heavy rain could stop the fires, but it is not expected until November.

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