Indonesia has recorded more than 1.06 million wildfire hotspot detections as of 14 October 2026, surpassing the 885,037 recorded in 2019.
Nearly 896,000 hectares of land had burned by August 2026, according to wildfire monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas.
Dry conditions linked to the ongoing Super El Niño could make the fires harder to control and increase the risk of further outbreaks.
Smoke from the wildfires has spread to neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, worsening air quality and raising public health concerns.
Slash-and-burn land-clearing practices and unusually dry weather have contributed to the fires, while aerosol maps show smoke spreading towards the Indian Ocean.
Indonesia is experiencing its worst wildfire season in a decade, with smoke from the fires already spreading to neighbouring countries. Dry conditions linked to the ongoing Super El Niño event in the equatorial Pacific Ocean could make the fires increasingly difficult to control, raising public health concerns across the region.
Data from Nusantara Atlas, an independent platform that tracks wildfires in Indonesia, showed that the country had recorded 1,061,746 wildfire hotspots as of October 14, 2026. This has already surpassed the 885,037 hotspots recorded in 2019, the previous worst year in the comparison.
The total area burned in Indonesia had reached 895,657 hectares (ha) by August 2026, according to the atlas. In comparison, 2,631,469 ha burned during the whole of 2019.
Smoke from the fires, containing polluting gases and airborne particles, has travelled beyond the affected areas into residential parts of Indonesia and neighbouring countries, including Malaysia and Singapore. This has worsened air quality and raised concerns about public health, according to a BBC report.
The BBC, citing local experts, non-governmental organisations and government officials, identified slash-and-burn land-clearing practices by major companies and unusually dry conditions associated with El Niño as key factors behind the fires. Although slash-and-burn land clearing is banned in Indonesia, enforcing the restrictions has proved challenging, according to the report.
Aerosol concentration maps on Windy, a weather visualisation platform, showed high concentrations of airborne particles over fire-affected regions, with the smoke spreading into surrounding areas and towards the Indian Ocean.
It remains to be seen whether the smoke could travel across the Bay of Bengal and reach India.