This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Toiling around the clock, haggard Indonesian firefighters on the island of Borneo cannot keep up with the blazes devouring landscapes and shrouding communities in a cloying haze. They are fighting a perilous battle with limited weapons against fires blamed in part on a stronger-than-usual episode of the El Niño climate phenomenon parching Southeast Asia.
Experts also blame climate change, decades of forest degradation and slash-and-burn land-clearing practices that have changed the naturally fire-resistant landscape. Sometimes we carry out firefighting until dawn. Sometimes we don't sleep," said Sampe Ritonga, fire chief for Sintang regency.
"Our facilities and infrastructure for firefighting are very limited," he told AFP, standing on the smoldering embers of a peatland fire separated from a residential settlement by a narrow dirt road. Behind him, veiled by the haze, the sun appeared as an eerie, rust-colored ball in the brown-gray sky. Sampe's team has only two 6,000-liter (1,600-gallon) fire engines and deploys one at a time while the other refills.
They also face a shortage of hoses. The team has fought dozens of fires this month. With river levels low, "we look for available water in ditches ... (and) small rivers," some far from active burn sites, Sampe said.
"So there are difficulties because they have to first carry out firefighting with high intensity, and second look for water," he added. "With the limitations we have, we try as hard as we can to extinguish the fires and also to reduce the smoke." Nearby, locals gathered to observe the team's efforts, offering drinking water to first responders. "There are many houses here, and that is what we have to protect," Sampe said.
Resident Sutrismi, 47, said she was at home Saturday when she heard a "crackling sound," looked out the window and saw smoke rising from the peatland across the road. Peatland fires, common in the area, generally smolder and spread under the soil for weeks or months, emitting huge quantities of smoke and only rarely causing surface blazes. "The first thing I did was look for help.
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