Indonesia fires burn 2.9 million hectares, monitor says

Fires in Indonesia have burned through 2.88 million hectares so far in 2026, according to Nusantara Atlas, a deforestation monitoring site that analyses satellite imagery.

The monitor said the burned area through the end of October had increased by nearly one million hectares since its last update in September. It said the figure already exceeds its full-year total for 2019, previously the worst year in its records.

Nusantara Atlas founder David Gaveau said the estimate was conservative because smoke had obscured some satellite images. He said the total burned area was likely to rise as some fires were still burning and more burn scars became visible.

Indonesia's government has not released updated official figures since saying 202,000 hectares had burned by the end of July. Forestry ministry spokesman Ristianto Pribadi said the government was still verifying its estimates and could not confirm when they would be announced.

Rain has brought some of the worst blazes under control, and monitoring shows hotspots starting to flatten or decline. The fires have been severe partly because of drought linked to El Nino. Experts also link the fires to deforestation and the drying of peatlands for plantations.

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