Indonesia's weekly wildfire emissions become the world's highest

Indonesia leads global fire emissions

Wildfires burning across Indonesia released an estimated 19.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from September 1 through September 7, making the country the world's largest source of fire emissions for that week. The European Union's Copernicus monitoring data put Indonesia ahead of Russia and attributed more than one-third of the global total to the archipelago.

The fires are concentrated in parts of Kalimantan on Borneo and eastern Sumatra, where drought has dried forests and carbon-rich peat. Copernicus measured fire-emission intensity above 1,500 kilograms per square kilometre, more than ten times the Russian level. Weekly emissions stood 273 percent above Indonesia's seasonal average, although below the equivalent week during the severe 2015 crisis.

Drought amplifies peatland risk

Reuters reported that intensified El Niño conditions have produced unusually hot and dry weather, allowing ignitions to spread more aggressively. Indonesian authorities described the season as the most intense in 11 years. The EU Space Support Office separately documented persistent fires and large smoke plumes around Ketapang in West Kalimantan using Sentinel-2 imagery acquired on September 2.

Peat fires create a particular monitoring and policy problem because they can smoulder underground or at temperatures too low for some satellite sensors. That means satellite-derived totals may understate the scale of burning. Peat also stores large quantities of carbon accumulated over long periods, so its combustion adds disproportionately to greenhouse-gas and particulate pollution.

Health and regional consequences

Hazardous air was already being recorded in parts of Kalimantan, while official Indonesian health data cited by the EU indicated more than 50,000 fire-associated respiratory infections during July and August, including over 12,000 among children younger than five. Smoke from recurring Indonesian fires can also move across national borders, making Malaysia and Singapore attentive to wind direction and fire persistence.

The immediate test is whether firefighting, peatland rewetting and rainfall can slow emissions before the season's expected peak. Copernicus specialists warned that burning could continue into late October, as it did in 2015. Updated land-area estimates, hospital data and transboundary air-quality readings will show whether the current surge becomes a prolonged regional emergency.