Toxic wildfire haze spreads across South East Asia as 'super' El Niño intensifies

ByBBC Indonesian, Gavin Butler and Virma Simonette.

Key points

• Between July and August, Indonesia's Health Ministry recorded over 50, 000 cases of respiratory infections linked to land and forest fires.
• Some 1, 300 kilometres away, in the Philippine island province of Palawan, residents documented similar symptoms, including itchy eyes, nose and throat.
• More than 12, 000 of those cases are of children under the age of five.
• Earlier this week, Indonesia's forestry minister Raja Juli Antoni remarked to journalists that the battle to extinguish the current wildfires was entering a critical phase.
• As weeks-long wildfires continue to burn, a blanket of toxic haze is enveloping parts of Indonesia and spreading into Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

Millions of individuals throughout sizeable swathes of South East Asia have been exposed to the smog. It in some areas has fuelled "acutely unhealthy" pollution more than 15 times the World Health Organization's recommended level.

Plenty of of the ongoing fires have been burning throughout Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo since mid-July – underpinned by a so-called Super El Niño that is exacerbating drought conditions.

Rizma Nur Fatimah, a 19-year-old teaching assistant at a school in Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan, informed the BBC that the smog in her classroom had become so thick "you couldn't even see your own feet".

"Even inside the house, with everything closed, the haze still got in, " she remarked. "We've been living with this since I was born. It's the same every year, so we've almost become resigned to it. But this year is worse."

Misbah, a 23-year-old mother from nearby Pengayuan village, remarked her three-year-old daughter had developed "a cough, a sore throat and a runny nose" during the haze.

"We are now experiencing mild headaches, " remarked Dr Precious Bañas-Melad. "My cousin who isn't allergic to anything began developing allergies. My husband is the first one who had itchy eyes and throat."

Malaysia, meanwhile, has documented rising cases of asthma and conjunctivitis against the backdrop of worsening air quality nationwide as smoke continues to drift throughout the border.

Indonesia's forest and peatland fires are not a new phenomenon. When vast areas of rainforest and peatland in Kalimantan were opened for logging, plantations and large-scale development projects, experts say the crisis is rooted in decades of land-use change, dating back to the Suharto era.

Today, large-scale fires are often associated with the expansion of industrial plantations and other commercial land employ. Environmental groups, researchers, and administration investigations have repeatedly alleged that some businesses employ fire as a cheap and effective way to clear vast areas of land.

Some point out that while drought and El Niño conditions support fires spread, the severity of the haze is additionally linked to human activity. Drained peatlands, industrial timber estates and oil palm plantations can leave landscapes more vulnerable to burning, with fires often recurring in the same areas.

Unlike traditional practices. It are small-scale, community-managed, and closely monitored, fires linked to large-scale land development can be far more tough to control and can cause environmental and public health impacts on a much larger scale.

What makes Indonesian Borneo's wildfires particularly worrying is that they are burning through one of the world's largest tropical peatland ecosystems.

Under normal conditions, these peatlands serve as gigantic carbon reservoirs. But under abnormal conditions, such as those at present hitting the region, they can become carbon "bombs". UN warns of 'supersized' El Niño as countries prepare for impact. Orangutans in danger as wildfires blaze through Indonesia.

"Peatlands are incredibly effective carbon stores because their waterlogged conditions slow decomposition, allowing carbon to accumulate underground for thousands of years, " explains Dr Nisa Novita, a peatland researcher at Indonesian conservation NGO Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara.

"But this also means they can become a 'carbon bomb' when they are drained or burned, because that carbon can be rapidly released into the atmosphere."

Others have cautioned that as the current Super El Niño continues to escalate over the coming months, the fires could significantly worsen.

Last year, without El Niño, forest fires in Indonesia torched a 359, 000-hectare area, notes Professor Bambang Hero Saharjo, a forest fire forensics expert from Institut Pertanian Bogor University.

Citing research reports, Prof Bambang informed the BBC that this year's El Niño could burn an area as substantial as 11 million hectares – putting it on par with one of Indonesia's worst wildfire seasons. It happened from 1997 to 1998.

"Our challenges are not over. September is the peak of El Niño, " he remarked earlier this week. "September is the main fight for us."

Taken together, the developments around toxic wildfire haze spreads across South East Asia as ' super' El Niño point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.