Volunteer firefighters are battling persistent wildfires in Indonesian Borneo’s peatlands, where underground fires and drought are driving toxic haze, health impacts and the risk of major greenhouse-gas emissions.
The fires are burning across Indonesian Borneo.
Volunteers fight underground fires
Volunteer firefighters are using hand tools, carts and portable fire pumps to fight the fires.
They are also digging ponds, canals and borewells through dry peat to keep their hoses supplied.
The health impact of the haze
The fires have caused a transnational haze crisis described as the region’s worst in more than a decade.
Air pollution indices have reached almost 75 times the World Health Organization’s recommended level in some cases. The World Health Organization’s recommended level is used as a reference for air pollution indices.
Indonesia’s Health Ministry recorded over 50,000 cases of respiratory infections linked to land and forest fires between July and August. More than 12,000 of those respiratory infection cases were children under the age of five.
Land-use change and peat fires
Experts say the crisis is rooted in decades of land-use change dating back to the Suharto era.
Susan Page, a professor at the University of Leicester’s school of geology and the environment, says industrial-scale development projects have been largely responsible for draining the area’s peat swamps.
According to Susan Page, those industrial-scale development projects drained peat swamps, rendering them significantly more fire-prone.
Source: BBC News
