Hazy new year: Asia to suffer for months as Indonesia fails to douse fires

Indonesian forest fires that have caused choking smoke to drift across Southeast Asia are spreading to new areas and are unlikely to be put out until next year, experts said on Monday. Indonesia has come under increased pressure from its neighbours to contain the annual “haze” crisis, which is caused by slash-and-burn agriculture practices, largely on Sumatra and Kalimantan. But it has failed to put out the fires, with “hot spots” growing in eastern parts of the country and industry officials and analysts estimating the smoke will last until early 2016. A senior official at a company active in Indonesia’s forested areas said the haze could continue until March.

Maybe it will last until December and January. It is because people are opening new agriculture areas, like palm oil.

Herry Purnomo, at the Center for International Forestry Research

About half of the fires during the last week have been on carbon-rich peat land areas, mostly in South Sumatra, South and Central Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has increased government efforts to tackle the haze in recent weeks, making several visits to the worst-hit areas and asking other countries for help, but apparently to little avail. "We all know that the burned areas are now widening beyond normal conditions,“ Widodo told reporters on Sunday. ”

The efforts to extinguish the fires are ongoing now both by land and air. We have to be patient because the burned areas is now wide.

President Joko Widodo

Asia-Pacific Asia haze