Forest fire haze from Indonesia detected in Malaysia

PEKANBARU, Indonesia (AP) — Haze from forest and peatland fires in some parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra island was detected in Malaysia on Sunday, officials said.

Forest and peat fires are an annual problem in Indonesia that strain relations with neighboring countries. In recent years, smoke from the fires has blanketed parts of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand.

A number of areas in Indonesia’s Riau province were still covered by thick haze, although choking smoke had not been registered in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru, said Riau deputy police chief Adrianto Jossy Kusumo.

He said more than 140 forest and peatland fires were reported in the province. Rokan Hilir and Rokan Hulu districts were the worst hit areas by fires that burned about 46 hectares in the two districts, resulting in heavy haze pollution across the area that reduced visibility to as low as one kilometer (half a mile).

The figure for fires was down from 294 hotspots on Saturday after authorities managed to extinguish the fire in several places, Kusumo said.

He said haze has caused the air quality in Riau to worsen, “but overall it has not disrupted people’s lives in other areas of the province.”

However, based on satellite imagery from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency in Pekanbaru, haze was detected moving northeastward and reaching Kemang Bay in Malaysia’s Negeri Sembilan state, said a forecaster on duty, Gita Dewi.

“It showed the haze was moving by the wind to cross Malaysia,” Dewi said. She said hotspots were also detected in other parts of West Sumatra and North Sumatra provinces, but Riau recorded the highest number of hotspots on the island of Sumatra.

Forest fires on Sumatra and Borneo islands often break out in the region during dry spells, smothering parts of nearby Singapore and Malaysia in haze.

In 2023, Indonesia which often sends apologies to its neighbors over the haze, denied that its fires were causing blankets of haze in Malaysia.

The Indonesian government usually blames plantation owners and traditional farmers for illegally setting the fires for land-clearing.