In brief
BBC reporter Liza Tambunan arrives in central Kalimantan to investigate why Indonesia’s worst wildfire season of a decade is choking the region and spreading across borders. The blaze, fed by peatlands, releases dense toxic fumes that impair breathing and visibility. Tambunan explains that peat stores immense carbon and once ignited, can smolder underground for weeks, making containment hard. The haze is a visible reminder of how climate change, deforestation and poor land‑management combine to threaten millions of lives.
BBC reporter Liza Tambunan has descended on central Kalimantan where the jungle blaze has become the worst wildfire season the island has seen in a decade.
The fire has turned the region into a cloud of toxic haze that has opened its eyes to cities across the sea, including Singapore and Malaysia. In those cities residents are coughing, doctors warn, and the air‑quality index has breached public‑health thresholds.
So why has a peat fire become such a nightmare? Tambunan explains that peat—an underground layer of very dry, carbon‑rich plant matter—stores vast amounts of energy. When dried or disturbed, it ignites and can smolder for weeks underground, meaning a fire can re‑explode even after the surface flames have been put out.
This subterranean nature not only keeps the fire alive, it also releases more carbon into the atmosphere than a surface forest burn could. The result is a monsoon‑bunch of bad‑smelling and dangerous smoke that lingers and travels great distances.
For now, Tambunan’s coverage means the world sees the scale of Indonesia’s fire problem and the urgent need for better peat‑land management. The haze that sprawls across borders serves as a stark reminder that these fires are not merely a local crisis—they are a regional and climatic one.
