Borneo Burns – Families on the Frontline of Asia's Toxic Haze

Wed Oct 21 2026 15:45:48 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

The smoky skies over Central Kalimantan turn homes into ash‑stained landscapes, leaving families and firefighters battling a deadly haze that threatens infant lungs and livelihoods.

When Borneo's peatlands ignite, the smoke spreads across Southeast Asia, turning daylight into rust‑colored fog. The haze inflicts severe respiratory illness on residents, especially children. While governments deploy water drops and volunteers, resources are stretched thin and relief comes too late. Families in Palangkaraya find themselves locked indoors yet still needing to buy food and school supplies. The crisis underscores a desperate intersection of environment and human lives, with a climate‑driven wildfire fever that shows no sign of abating.

Borneo is burning – living on the frontline of Asia’s toxic haze

The sun turns the smoke‑heavy skies of Central Kalimantan into a rust‑eyed world, where cars, houses and streets dissolve into a dim, orange haze. It is an apocalyptic sight no photo can fully capture.

For Dianyra Eka Nastiti and her three children, the terror is most acute at night. The air’s tight, fetid quality makes her infant’s cough feel like a possible death cry.

Borneo’s peatlands have blazed for more than a year, with satellite images now showing 1.9 million hectares consumed by fire – roughly the size of New Jersey. The resulting plume has spread as far as Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Between August and September alone, the Ministry of Health logged 277 000 cases of cough and respiratory infection, 62 000 of them involving children under five. The haze carries microscopic particles that penetrate deep into the lungs, causing inflammation and long‑term risk for chronic disease.

Firefighters such as Juni and Fauzi Rahman have fought relentless blazes, often underground, for more than 100 days. They report that the peat requires deep water injections – a luxury that the dry, Super‑El Nino soil cannot provide.

The government says it has deployed 60 000 personnel and has achieved an 80 percentage success rate at extinguishing new fires. Yet community members argue that the real problem is the lack of water and the proliferation of fire into previously untouched territories.

When the haze turns the skies yellow or orange, even households that can stay indoors feel helpless, as their air is still filled with carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter. Mothers lock their homes, but they cannot escape the need to purchase food, school supplies and medicine.

While scientists urge for urgent worldwide cooperation to manage peatland fires, local authorities promise “every safe and effective option.” Yet for now, the fire continues. Residents in Palangkaraya hold onto hope for rain from a desperate climate that remains unforgiving.