In brief
A thick orange haze has descended over Palangka Raya in Indonesia’s Kalimantan, shrouding the city in a toxic blanket that pushed its air‑quality index to 1,200—four times the hazardous threshold. Residents watched smog blanket the landscape amid fires that still rage across the island. Authorities blame the widespread slash‑and‑burn agricultural technique for exacerbating the haze, a problem that has left millions across Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia breathing polluted air. The situation underscores the urgent need for stricter fire‑management policies and cleaner energy options in the region.
The city of Palangka Raya was suddenly covered in an orange haze, a thick blanket of smoke that blurred the skyline and made breathing difficult for the city’s 870,000 residents.
Witnesses captured footage of the smog rolling across the Kalimantan region as fires continued to flare in surrounding forests and plantations. The Indonesian Ministry of Environment’s National Air Quality Index saw a spike to 1,200 in the area, a level four times higher than the hazardous threshold of 300.
The haze is largely linked to Indonesia’s slash‑and‑burn agriculture, a method in which fields are cleared by cutting and burning vegetation. While the technique is cheap and quick, it releases massive amounts of particulate matter and carbon monoxide, choking streets not only in Indonesia but across Singapore and Malaysia.
Policymakers say stricter enforcement and incentives for alternative land‑clearing methods are essential. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warns that continued use of slash‑and‑burn could worsen climate risks and threaten local communities’ health.
For a deeper look at how these fires are affecting the region, read a recent investigative piece here.