Record wildfire smoke from Indonesian peatland fires has cloaked Singapore, Malaysia, and southern Thailand in hazardous haze for the third consecutive week — with air quality in parts of Kuala Lumpur reaching “hazardous” levels for the first time since 2015. Indonesia’s government has declared a national emergency and deployed military aircraft for water-bombing runs across Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) exceeded 300 for the first time in a decade, well above the “hazardous” threshold of 200. The city-state’s prime minister called the situation “a health crisis, not just an environmental one” and announced free N95 masks for vulnerable residents. Hundreds of schools across Singapore, Malaysia, and southern Thailand have been closed.
Malaysia has called for a regional ASEAN emergency summit to address the crisis. The country’s environment minister said Indonesia’s response had been “wholly inadequate” and called the situation “an annual catastrophe that ASEAN has failed to prevent for decades.” Malaysia’s health ministry reported a 40% spike in respiratory hospital admissions in the past two weeks.
Indonesia has denied sole responsibility, pointing to fires on Malaysian and Singaporean territory — a claim both countries firmly reject. Indonesia’s environment minister said his country was “doing everything possible” and blamed palm oil companies operating illegally in fire-prone areas. Malaysia’s environment minister called Indonesia’s position “disingenuous.”
Scientists say the peat beneath Indonesia’s fire-prone zones has become so degraded it reignites even after rain, making the fires nearly impossible to extinguish seasonally. Dr. Lahiru Wijedasa, a peatland researcher at the National University of Singapore, said the fires are “a direct consequence of decades of drainage and deforestation” and warned that recovery would take “generations, not years.”
Thailand’s northern provinces are expected to be affected by cross-border smoke drift by the weekend. The regional economic impact is estimated at over $2 billion in lost productivity and healthcare costs, according to the World Bank. Tourism boards across Southeast Asia have reported a sharp decline in bookings as images of orange skies circulate on social media.
Indonesia’s president said his government was deploying 10,000 additional personnel to fire-prone areas in Kalimantan and Sumatra. The fires are also releasing carbon stored in the peat, making Indonesia one of the world’s largest emitters for the third consecutive year — a fact that climate scientists say undermines global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, signed in 2014, has no enforcement mechanism and has been widely criticised as toothless. Singapore has called for the agreement to be strengthened with binding targets and penalties.
Sources: Reuters, AP, The Straits Times, Jakarta Post, New Straits Times, BBC.
The crisis has prompted calls for a fundamental rethink of Indonesia’s land-use policies. Environmental groups have long argued that the government’s failure to enforce a moratorium on new palm oil plantations in peatland areas is the root cause of the annual fires. Indonesia’s president acknowledged that “past mistakes” had contributed to the crisis but insisted his government was committed to “a new approach” that would include stricter enforcement and peatland restoration programmes.
Air quality monitors in Brunei, Vietnam, and the southern Philippines have also recorded elevated pollution levels, though not yet at hazardous thresholds. The World Meteorological Organisation said the fires were being exacerbated by an unusually dry monsoon season linked to the La Niña weather pattern, which is expected to persist through August.