What does karhutla mean?

Karhutla is the Indonesian abbreviation for kebakaran hutan dan lahan — forest and land fires, often on peatland cleared by burning.

What is Indonesia doing about the 2026 fires?

It says it has deployed more than 60,000 personnel and 48 helicopters and aircraft for water bombing and cloud seeding, and suspended licences of 26 companies linked to fires.

Indonesia’s karhutla fires: 60,000 personnel and 48 aircraft deployed as haze crosses borders

With forest and land fires burning from South Sumatra to Central Kalimantan, Jakarta tells Malaysia it has mobilised water bombing and cloud seeding — while cal

Indonesia’s forest and land fires — known at home as karhutla (kebakaran hutan dan lahan) — have become a regional story again. Smoke from fires around Palembang in South Sumatra, Palangka Raya in Central Kalimantan and other regions has drifted over Malaysia and Singapore, where the skyline has been hidden by haze and some Malaysian schools have closed.

What Jakarta says it is doing

Foreign Minister Arrmanatha Nasir told his Malaysian counterpart Mohamad Hasan by phone that Indonesia has deployed more than 60,000 personnel and 48 helicopters and aircraft for water bombing and weather modification (cloud seeding), Kompas reported on 13 October. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had sent envoys through his foreign minister to raise the fires.

The head of Indonesia’s Government Communication Agency (Bakom), Syahganda Nainggolan, described the cross-border smoke as a natural phenomenon “beyond human error,” adding: “We are not just sending smoke; if there’s no smoke, we are sending oxygen.” He said relations with both neighbours remain strong.

How big are the fires?

Citing the BBC and the forest-monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas, JournalArta reported on 14 October that around 900,000 hectares have burned, in what the BBC called Indonesia’s worst fire season in a decade, linked to an unusually strong El Niño. Authorities have suspended the operating licences of 26 companies linked to the fires, and President Prabowo Subianto has called slash-and-burn clearing “ecological terrorism” and demanded tougher sanctions.

Day to day, the national disaster agency BNPB is still logging fires well beyond Sumatra and Kalimantan: its 13 October report lists blazes in North Sulawesi, South Sulawesi and East Java, and urges people not to clear land by burning and to report hotspots immediately.

The corporate trail

A Greenpeace report this month counted more than 30 haze source points between August and September on land managed by two subsidiaries of Singapore-based First Resources, and 19 on land run by a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Kepong. First Resources says it keeps a “strict zero burning policy”; KLK says most of its fires started outside its concession. Singapore’s 2014 Transboundary Haze Pollution Act lets it pursue companies abroad that contribute to haze.

Sources: Kompas, 13 October 2026; JournalArta, 14 October 2026 (citing BBC, Nusantara Atlas and Greenpeace); BNPB, 13 October 2026.