Indonesia Steps Up Fight Against Wildfires and Toxic Haze

Indonesia has intensified its fight against wildfires and toxic haze, using cloud seeding — spreading particles into clouds to trigger rain — and water bombing as thousands struggle to breathe, officials said Friday. More than 5 million people on Borneo and Sumatra are directly exposed to risks from the putrid haze from dozens of fires, said Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono. Some 13,500 people were treated for respiratory infections in July and August, he said. Several schools have closed intermittently, and the haze has sickened people in Singapore and Malaysia.

Dante said vulnerable groups — children, the elderly, pregnant women, people with asthma and outdoor workers — must be monitored. NGOs have opened two shelters in Palangkaraya, capital of Central Kalimantan on Borneo, for babies and children affected by the haze; each can hold five children at a time and is stocked with baby formula, oxygen tanks, medicine and a playground.

Katharina Abi, 30, brought her one- and five-year-old children to a shelter on Friday. Thick afternoon smoke "really bothers my breathing," she said, adding that her children often have coughs and colds. Dante said prolonged exposure to toxic air can cause serious long-term health complications.

His ministry has distributed more than 5 million masks across Indonesia, a country of 289 million people contending with a supercharged El Niño — a natural climate pattern that typically brings drought — dubbed "Godzilla." Disaster agency BNPB said its response has had some success, pouring more than 4 million liters of water on burning areas and scattering over 8,000 kilograms of salt onto clouds on Wednesday alone, producing light to moderate rain over eastern and southern Sumatra and western Kalimantan.

Fires between January and July burned more than 200,000 hectares (772 square miles) — an area three times the size of Jakarta — more than during the previous El Niño seasons of 2019 and 2023, the government said. Many of the fires are blamed on slash-and-burn land-clearing practices for agriculture.