Toxic Skies Over Southeast Asia: Inside Indonesia’s Battle Against Peatland Fires as Regional Friction Mounts

JAKARTA — Deep inside the peat swamps of Central Kalimantan, emergency crews are battling an enemy they often cannot see until the ground gives way beneath their boots.

Flames burning meters below the parched forest floor have crept into Tanjung Puting National Park, a critical sanctuary for endangered orangutans. Thick plumes of white-gray smoke blanket the landscape, reducing visibility so sharply that aerial water-bombing helicopters have repeatedly been grounded, leaving thousands of soldiers, police officers, and volunteer brigades to dig into smoldering peat on foot.

The subterranean crisis has quickly escalated into a multi-front challenge for the administration of President Prabowo Subianto. At home, the persistent blazes have choked air travel, grounding and delaying more than 1,600 domestic flights across Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua. Abroad, prevailing equatorial winds have pushed toxic haze across the Malacca Strait, reviving regional environmental friction and testing bilateral relations with neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.

A Battle on the Ground

During a limited cabinet meeting convened hybridly from the Merdeka Palace on Monday, President Prabowo directed state agencies to treat the protected sanctuary with urgent priority. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) reported that a newly detected blaze had consumed roughly 513.89 hectares within Tanjung Puting, with hot spots scattered across peat swamplands inaccessible to heavy machinery and vehicles.

"Taman Nasional Tanjung Puting becomes a focus of attention because it is a national park," Prabowo said during the briefing, stressing that the conservation zone must be safeguarded.

When Maj. Gen. Zainul Arifin, the regional military commander overseeing the sector, reported an acute shortage of portable equipment and requested 50 small water pumps to navigate the swamps, Prabowo quadrupled the order on the spot.

"How many water pumps do you need? 50? I will send 200," Prabowo told the commander.

When informed that emergency drilling teams could tap subterranean water tables at depths of 10 to 15 meters, the president immediately authorized Rp 2 billion ($126,000) from state funds to finance the work. "I will send Rp 2 billion, 200 points," Prabowo added, instructing commanders to recruit local communities to assist in establishing the boreholes.

Despite the geographic spread of the fires, the central government has stopped short of declaring a national disaster. Speaking to reporters at the presidential palace complex following the cabinet review, Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Dudung Abdurachman emphasized that domestic institutions remain capable of containing the crisis without triggering an emergency decree.

"Not yet, not yet. We are still capable of handling it," Dudung said when asked about the national disaster status.

Dudung explained that military and police leadership have enacted regular rotations, bringing in fresh units from the Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) to relieve exhausted field garrisons. Ground deployments now count 60,177 joint personnel across six priority provinces, with Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra serving as primary operational focal points.

"From the President, there was a report from the Head of BNPB that six provinces are areas of concentration, with two provinces—Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra—as main focuses," Dudung said. "Then there is another priority in Central Kalimantan, which is Tanjung Puting or around the National Park, because this must be protected given the presence of wildlife there."

The physical containment effort is supported by a fleet of 48 aircraft—including 33 dedicated water-bombing platforms and 15 planes conducting surveillance and cloud-seeding weather modification sorties. Yet Dudung acknowledged that aerial drops face severe operational hurdles against deep peat blazes when heavy smoke layers blanket target coordinates.

"And then from the report of the Head of BNPB, helicopter operations have been carried out, but it is much more dominant on ground operations because it is difficult to reach from the air due to smoke that is too thick," Dudung said.

Grounded Flights and Subterranean Fires

The economic and logistical fallout of the seasonal burning is spreading rapidly through the nation's transport corridors.

Data from the Ministry of Transportation’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation shows that 1,673 scheduled domestic flights were disrupted by wildfire smoke between August 11 and October 9. The disruptions included 907 cancellations and postponements, 745 delays, 15 diversions, and six flight returns.

Regional budget carriers bore the brunt of the disruptions, with Citilink recording 478 affected flights, followed by NAM Air and Wings Air. Regional air hubs in Kalimantan—including Supadio Airport in Pontianak, Tjilik Riwut in Palangka Raya, and Iskandar in Pangkalan Bun—faced rolling operational suspensions as visibility dropped below minimum safety thresholds. Similar ground stops hit airports across Sumatra and parts of Papua.

Aviation authorities have instructed airlines to ensure strict compliance with passenger compensation mandates, warning that carriers failing to provide required refunds or rescheduling options will face regulatory sanctions.

International Missions and Cross-Border Smoke

As smoke plumes expanded across the region, international partners moved to coordinate with Jakarta.

In late August, Japan dispatched CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters from the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force to assist with aerial water bombing over West Kalimantan. According to the Japan Ministry of Defense, Tokyo formally concluded its international disaster relief mission on September 29 after Indonesian authorities advised that bilateral efforts had stabilized active fire zones and that further operations could be sustained by domestic forces.

Across the Singapore Strait, the transboundary fallout has drawn close scrutiny from regional neighbors.

In Singapore, air quality readings deteriorated into the unhealthy band over the weekend, according to reports by local broadcaster Channel NewsAsia. Singapore’s Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said the city-state stands ready to assist Indonesian authorities if needed, noting that Singaporean agencies had activated public health contingency plans, prepared hospital wards, and issued advisories for outdoor workers and sporting events ahead of the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix.

In Malaysia, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim confirmed he had spoken directly with President Prabowo to express concern over deteriorating air quality and coordinate mitigation efforts, according to reports from state news agency Bernama and Malaysian daily Malay Mail. Malaysian authorities noted that their foreign ministry had contacted the ASEAN Secretariat to propose an extraordinary meeting of regional environment ministers to address transboundary smoke patterns.

Indonesian officials have maintained that bilateral communication channels remain open and cooperative. Dudung noted that preventative actions must be intensified across village administrations to stop new fires before they emerge.

"He [the President] also conveyed that prevention must be precise and mitigated from the regional level," Dudung said, citing coordinated surveillance among local police officers, territorial soldiers, youth groups, and regional authorities so that suppression begins "before the possibility of fire appearing."

Reinforcing the Forest Ranks

Beyond immediate containment lines, the crisis has spurred structural overhauls in Indonesia's long-term conservation posture.

To close a persistent enforcement gap across millions of hectares of state canopy, President Prabowo instructed the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform to begin scaling the national forest police force. With only 4,500 rangers currently tasked with patrolling the archipelago's reserves, the administration plans to expand the force toward 70,000 personnel over the coming years, backed by specialized training from the National Police.

"Please convey to the Menpan RB, if indeed I am asking for 70,000 forest police, it is because there is a purpose to safeguard our forests," Prabowo said during Monday's cabinet meeting.

For now, the focus remains locked on the smoldering swamplands of Central Kalimantan. With weather modification planes scanning cloud banks and thousands of soldiers pumping water into subterranean peat layers, Jakarta is racing to quench persistent hot spots before shifting winds draw regional scrutiny deeper into the dry season.