El Nino Fuels Indonesia Fire Outbreak, Destroys 2.88 Million Hectares – Report

Fires in Indonesia driven partly by a strong El Nino have burned through 2.88 million hectares (7.1 million acres) so far in 2026, a monitor analysing satellite imagery told AFP on Wednesday. The burned area figure — 18 times the size of London — has increased nearly a million hectares since deforestation monitoring site Nusantara Atlas’s last update in September.

Indonesia’s government has not provided official figures for areas burned since announcing 202,000 hectares had been razed by the end of July. The burning detected in analysis through the end of October is a conservative estimate, warned Nusantara Atlas founder David Gaveau, in part because smoke has obscured satellite images. But it already exceeds the full-year figure for 2019, previously the worst year on record in Nusantara Atlas data.

Indonesia also experienced devastating fires in 2015, but the satellite imagery used then was different, making a direct comparison difficult. Volunteers spray water to extinguish a land fire at Terantang in Barito Kuala regency, South Kalimantan province, on November 7, 2026, following months of forest and land fires. (Photo by MUDA SAGALA / AFP) Still, the scale of destruction is clear, said Gaveau.

“Basically, it’s a really bad year,” he said. The arrival of rain has brought some of the worst blazes under control, and monitoring shows the number of so-called hotspots starting to flatten or decline. But the figure for total burned area is likely to rise further given some fires are still burning, and as burn scars previously hidden by smoke become visible to satellites in coming months.

Indonesia’s government previously said it needed more time to analyse data before issuing updated figures. AFP has asked for comment on the monitor’s latest data. Indonesia experiences fires every dry season, but this year’s blazes have been particularly severe in part due to an intense drought caused by the El Nino weather pattern. A firefighter sprays water to extinguish a wildfire burning organic-rich peatland, which smolders underground and releases dense smoke in Pulang Pisau Regency, in Central Kalimantan province on November 4, 2026. (Photo by REINA / AFP) Experts say the fires are also the result of decades of deforestation and the drying out of peatlands for plantations, making large swathes of land more vulnerable to flames.

The fires have caused devastating local pollution that has sickened hundreds of thousands of people and sent haze into neighbouring countries, including Malaysia and Singapore. AFP