Indonesia: fire smoke killed 3,560 people in September, CREA estimates
· BehindLines newsroom
An estimated 3,560 deaths in Indonesia during September 2026 are blamed on smoke from forest and peatland blazes, roughly double the August toll, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based think tank. AFP reported the figure on 30 October.
A short-term estimate
According to CREA, air pollution from all sources caused 5,310 deaths in September in a country of about 290 million people: 3,560 linked to fire smoke and 1,750 to non-fire sources such as urban power generation, industry and transport. The group calculates deaths attributable to exposure to fine particles (PM2.5) over a matter of days. About 57.8 million people breathed air rated unhealthy to hazardous, and more than 330,000 acute respiratory infections were recorded nationwide. Exposure exceeded the World Health Organization's annual guideline more than sevenfold nationally, tenfold in Sumatra and twenty-four-fold in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. In Java, 73% to 80% of pollution deaths came from non-fire sources, or 1,530 in September.
Nearly two million hectares burned
According to the satellite monitor Nusantara Atlas, cited by AFP, more than 1.9 million hectares burned between January and the end of September, 38% more than at the same point in 2019. The monitor calls the figures conservative, since the tracking skips small burn scars and haze has sometimes obscured images; David Gaveau says his intuition is that the situation is probably as bad as in 2015, though no comparable satellite data exists for that year. The Indonesian government has not published an official tally since the 202,000 hectares announced at the end of July, and has neither confirmed nor denied this count.
Drought, El Niño and land clearing
A drought that began in June, worsened by a strong El Niño, fed the fires. Experts blame much of the burning on land clearing, often by timber, palm oil or mining companies. Agus Sari, chief executive of the consultancy Landscape Indonesia, calls the disaster "predictable and avoidable", pointing to weak preparedness and budget cuts at the national disaster agency.
Smoke that crosses borders
The haze reached Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and East Timor, and schools closed in Malaysia and East Timor. According to Singapore's National Environment Agency, fifteen consecutive days had been rated "unhealthy" as of 19 October, against eight in 2015, and warnings went to ten Indonesian companies. Jakarta had ruled out declaring a national disaster, saying it could handle the situation alone. The government says it deployed more than 72,000 people for cloud seeding and firefighting, activated more than 2,100 doctors and health workers and distributed 5.3 million masks. CREA recommends restoring drained peatlands, penalising illegal burning and tightening emissions standards in Java.