Indonesia’s most severe wildfires in at least a decade were intensified by a combination of El Niño and fossil fuel emissions. The blazes have consumed nearly 3 million hectares this year and blanketed much of south-east Asia in toxic smog.
The Role of Climate Change and El Niño
An international team of World Weather Attribution scientists examined conditions in Java, Kalimantan, and Sumatra during the peak fire season from August to October. They discovered that global heating, primarily caused by the burning of oil, gas, and coal, increased temperatures by 1.6C during this period, drying out land and vegetation.
Meanwhile, El Niño added an additional 0.3C and cut rainfall by approximately 50 percent. Prof Friederike Otto, a climate science professor at Imperial College London, stated that El Niño reduced water supplies while fossil fuel emissions amplified temperatures. Otto warned that fire weather during El Niño years will grow increasingly severe as global temperatures continue to rise.
Research indicated that climate change made the hot, dry air conditions three times more likely, while El Niño made them five times more likely. Decades of logging, agroforestry expansion, and the draining of peatlands also created tinderbox conditions. Pramudhian Firdaus, a meteorologist at Melbourne University who collaborates with the Indonesian meteorological service, explained that dramatic landscape changes over the past 30 years through extensive pipeline drainage and deforestation have left the region highly vulnerable to ignition.
Health and Political Impacts
Fires continue burning across Indonesia because El Niño has delayed the arrival of the rainy season by 20 to 30 days, according to the country’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG). Recent local reports show that 2.88 million hectares have burned so far, which would surpass the century’s previous record set in 2015 when 2.6 million hectares burned and generated 333 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
The situation has triggered political consequences, with protesters in Jakarta demanding that the government declare the fires a national emergency. The health ministry reports that wildfire smoke has caused at least 400,000 respiratory infections, including 180,000 among children, while the toxic haze has spread to Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
Maja Vahlberg, a technical adviser at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, noted that the severe fires are harming health across the region, particularly affecting vulnerable groups such as children, older adults, and those with pre-existing conditions. Vahlberg added that predictable El Niño conditions offer an opportunity for proactive, preventive action to prevent similar disasters in the future.
