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View all search resultsIndonesia’s fires are releasing centuries of stored carbon
An El-Niño-induced intense drought is the match that lit this year's peat fires in Indonesia, which are releasing ancient carbon that won’t be reabsorbed by future forest growth as a dire consequence of land conversion.
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Motorists drive with their headlights on amid thick, soupy haze on Oct. 24, 2026, along Jl. Tjilik Riwut in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan. (Antara/Auliya Rahman)
R
ight now, people in parts of Indonesia are inhaling what may be the most polluted atmosphere on Earth. As the historically large 2026 El Niño intensifies, parts of Southeast Asia have been plunged into an air quality crisis of catastrophic proportions.
Smoke from fires has driven concentrations of dangerous and tiny particulate matter known as PM2.5 to extreme levels, creating a public health emergency threatening millions of lives.
The World Health Organization stipulates a maximum breathable “safe limit” of 15 micrograms (mcg) per cubic meter of PM2.5 across a 24-hour average. In haze affected parts of Indonesia, this year’s concentrations have routinely exceeded 500 mcg and even 1,000 in places: That’s more than 65 times the WHO maximum.
This is not the kind of polluted air you might find on a smoggy day in most parts of the world. It is a toxic atmosphere considered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to be “hazardous”. The delayed effects of breathing such air include increased risk of heart attack, stroke and a host of respiratory illnesses.
The catalyst for this year’s crisis is a collision between meteorological events and decades of changes to Indonesia’s landscape. The historically intense El Niño has brought a punishing dry spell across the archipelago, leaving the landscape parched.
But the weather is only the match; land management practices provide the fuel.
Historically, lowland tropical forests growing on peat soils were naturally resistant to fire because of their moist conditions. However, deforestation for agriculture, forest fragmentation and peatland drainage have drastically altered the landscape and increased its flammability.
