Indonesia fires burn through 2.88 million hectares so far in 2026: monitor

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Jakarta, Indonesia: Fires in Indonesia fueled partly by a strong El Ni o have burned through 2.88 million hectareso far in 2026, AFP reported, citing...

Flames and thick smoke glow against the night sky as a massive wildfire burns near residential structures in the Panarung area of Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan province, on October 8, 2026. File photo.

Jakarta, Indonesia: Fires in Indonesia fueled partly by a strong El Niño have burned through 2.88 million hectare so far in 2026, AFP reported, citing a monitor analysing satellite imagery.

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.

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.

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