Bad newsWildfire Smoke Killed an Estimated 3,560 People in Indonesia in September
A study by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates 3,560 deaths from fire smoke in September, with a record 57.8 million people breathing unhealthy to hazardous air. Jakarta says it has deployed 72,000 people.
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Smoke from forest and land fires killed an estimated 3,560 people in Indonesia in September. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based think tank, released the estimate on Thursday 29 October. Total air-pollution deaths rose 42% in a month, from an estimated 3,740 in August to 5,310 in September, Al Jazeera reports. Another 1,750 deaths came from urban and industrial pollution that does not depend on fires.
These are modelled estimates of deaths from short-term exposure to fine particles, the Independent notes, not a count of recorded deaths. CREA says a record 57.8 million people breathed air rated unhealthy to hazardous in September, 40% more than the August peak of 41.3 million. In Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, the number breathing hazardous air on the worst days nearly tripled from 2.8 million to 6.4 million.
Where the burden falls
Smoke accounted for 94% to 99% of air-pollution deaths in four Kalimantan provinces and more than 80% in several on Sumatra, CREA found. Central Kalimantan had the highest death rate, 14.1 per 100,000 people in September, more than double August’s. On Java, by contrast, 1,530 deaths were tied to industry, traffic and waste burning rather than fires.
Daily PM2.5 averaged 372 micrograms per cubic metre in Palangka Raya and 327 in Pontianak. Both are above Indonesia’s hazardous threshold of 300 and 22 to 25 times the World Health Organization’s 24-hour limit of 15. CREA says satellite readings of fire activity in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua passed the 2015 records, the year of Indonesia’s worst haze crisis.
The illness count is rising too. The health ministry recorded 333,470 acute respiratory infections in seven provinces by 21 October, up from 283,270 on 13 October and more than six times the 50,891 logged in July and August. Children under five account for 75,172 of the cases.
The government’s response
Jakarta says it has deployed more than 72,000 people for cloud seeding and firefighting. It has activated more than 2,100 doctors and health workers and distributed 5.3 million masks. CREA says the national disaster agency’s budget was cut 75% for 2026, from 2 trillion rupiah to 491 billion rupiah. Its report also criticises the government’s resistance to declaring the fires a national emergency. The sources reviewed carry no government reply on the budget figure.
What would change the outcome is not in the report as a forecast. The figures cover September only. The fires were still burning in October, when the national disaster agency recorded 1,024 hectares alight in a single 24-hour period on 19 October.
