The BBC has travelled to one of the epicentres of South East Asia's haze crisis: Palangkaraya city in Central Kalimantan, where smouldering peatland line the road.

Here's a quick look of what we've been reporting from the region:

• The air is unlike anything I've smelled before - a mix of burnt rubber and wood, writes our correspondent Liza Tambunan

• Local residents say they have no choice but to brave the toxic smog every day. Some are seeking relief at "clean air shelters" set up by local volunteers
• The weeks of toxic smog shrouding millions in the region is expected to come with a hefty price tag: In 2015, another bad episode of haze cost the region around $20bn (£15bn) in losses
• The haze crisis is taking centre stage in multiple protests today in the capital Jakarta and other cities, as President Prabowo Subianto's administration marks its second year in office

• More than 2,600 domestic flights in Indonesia have been cancelled, and schools in neighbouring Malaysia have been closed

• The crisis is turning into a diplomatic headache for Indonesia and its neighbours
• As public anger mounts over the haze, Singapore has vowed to pursue legal action against companies linked to wildfire spots, while Malaysia says it will use diplomatic channels to tackle the issue

We're ending our live coverage now. Thank you for joining us.

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, Getty Images

"When we wake up in the morning, we are greeted by smoke that turns the air yellow, and we deal with the exact same thing until we go to sleep at night," Naomi Artika Simamora, a law student at the University of Palangka Raya, tells the BBC.

At points, levels of PM2.5 - the tiniest haze particles that can enter bloodstreams - have reportedly soared past 3,000 µg/m³, more than 200 times of what's considered acceptable by the World Health Organization.

"It feels like we need astronaut equipment just to survive, as if we aren't even living on Earth anymore," she said, adding that this was the first time she had dealt with such extreme pollution, and she had considered leaving the city to wait out the haze.

"What makes it even more exhausting is seeing the government's indifference toward handling this disaster."

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, BBC/Haryo Wirawan

Fauzi Rahman, a 27-year-old firefighter in Palangka Raya - one of the wildfires' epicentres - says the flames raging in Indonesia's peatlands are much harder to put out than the fires he usually encounters.

Peatlands are waterlogged ecosystems containing semi-decomposed vegetation, which become highly flammable when dried out.

"Because peat soil is quite deep, we have to completely put out the fire all the way down," Fauzi says. "It can take one or two months - sometimes even longer. And even then, it might not be completely out."

With several fires burning in Palangka Raya, the priority now is to protect areas close to people's homes, he says.

Astudestra Ajengrastri
BBC News Indonesia

Image source, South Kalimantan Police

Authorities in South Kalimantan have been testing a new firefighting technique designed to tackle one of the biggest challenges of peatland fires: heat that continues smoldering underground long after surface flames appear to be extinguished.

The method, known as undercooling, uses pipes driven up to two meters into peat soil to inject water and a specially formulated firefighting liquid directly into underground hotspots.

Thermal drones are then used to detect hidden heat and monitor results.

"We don't just need to know if the fire on the surface is out. We also need to know whether heat remains underground,” police spokesperson Trunoyudo Wisnu Andiko told reporters. “The undercooling system allows us to cool the source of the heat from below.”

Police said a recent trial in Pengayuan, near Banjarbaru, reduced underground temperatures from around 120°C to 30°C, with hotspots no longer visible in follow-up thermal imaging.

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Despite efforts to put out the fires in Indonesia many of them keep burning. Official data shows the number of hotspots continues to fluctuate, rising again after a period of decline.

This is in part due to peatland fires, which burn underground and can continue to smoulder and re-emerge.

“Fires in peatland areas are extremely difficult to extinguish. Even if all the fires are put out today, that doesn’t necessarily mean the fire will be fully contained by tomorrow, as new hotspots can emerge,” said Suharyanto, head of Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), has said.

Last month, Prabowo also established the National Peatland and Mangrove Management Agency to strengthen peatland management and prevent recurring forest and land fires.

But the creation of the agency has drawn some scepticism over how effectively it will address existing challenges in peatland management.

“The government does not need a new agency simply to count activities and build infrastructure. Indonesia needs governance that can keep peatlands wet, halt further degradation, ensure accountability among concession holders, and protect communities that have borne the impact,” said Putra Saptian, a senior campaigner at Pantau Gambut.

M Irham
BBC Indonesian

Image source, BBC/Silvano Hajid

Dozens of students are staging a protest near the Arjuna Wijaya Statue, a copper landmark in Central Jakarta, as today marks two years of the Prabowo-Gibran administration in office.

Among other demands spanning economic and political issues, protesters want the wildfires to be declared a national disaster.

"Children in Kalimantan are struggling to breathe," said an organiser of the protest. "On behalf of students and the people of Kalimantan, we declare that Prabowo and Gibran have failed to solve this problem."

"Two years of red marks: Reject the Prabowo-Gibran fascist regime," reads one banner they're carrying.

Police deployed more than 9,000 security personnel across Jakarta to demonstrations taking place at multiple locations in the capital.

Authorities said there were 26 protest actions were scheduled for today - though the number of actual attendees isn't immediately clear.

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, Reuters

The fires add to the list of crises President Prabowo Subianto is facing since taking office in late 2024.

In August, Prabowo warned corporations against violating a law that bans the burning of forests, saying he would take strict action against violators and revoke their permits. On social media, Indonesians are calling for stronger action.

In recent months, Prabowo has been criticised for mass poisonings that have plagued his multibillion-dollar free meals programme for students that was designed to tackle stunting. There are also concerns about the country’s economy

A poll in July, by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC), showed that Prabowo’s approval rating dropped to 51.1% from 81.2% in November 2025 and 66.4% in late February and early March.

A spokesperson for SMRC had said that Indonesia’s economic growth metrics – though accurate – do not translate into a sense of personal well-being, backing claims previously made by several economists.

The spokesperson noted that Prabowo’s standing had also taking a hit due to public discontent with the country’s political situation and the state of law enforcement.

The haze engulfing parts of Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua will prove to be yet another challenge to the president’s standing.

Faisal Irfani
BBC Indonesia

Indonesia's forest and peatland fires are not a new phenomenon. Experts say the crisis is rooted in decades of land-use change, dating back to the Suharto era, when vast areas of rainforest and peatland in Kalimantan were opened for logging, plantations and large-scale development projects.

Today, large-scale fires are often associated with the expansion of industrial plantations and other commercial land use. Environmental groups, researchers, and government investigations have repeatedly alleged that some companies use fire as a cheap and effective way to clear vast areas of land.

Researchers argue that while drought and El Niño conditions help fires spread, the severity of the haze is also linked to human activity. Drained peatlands, industrial timber estates and oil palm plantations can leave landscapes more vulnerable to burning, with fires often recurring in the same areas.

Unlike traditional land-clearing practices, which are small-scale, community-managed, and closely monitored, fires linked to large-scale land development can be far more difficult to control and can cause environmental and public health impacts on a much larger scale.

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, BBC/Haryo Wirawan

A team of scientists has travelled to Kalimantan, the heart of the wildfires, for fieldwork.

Maria Nolan, a climate scientist at the Liverpool John Moores University, is in the forest to measure the emissions coming out of the active fires. So far they've tracked carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and nitrous oxide being released from the peatland.

Resti Salmayenti, a peatland scientist at the University of Leeds, has observed that the peatlands this year, amid a strong El Niño, are much drier than in 2024.

Back then, water could be found about 40cm below the forest ground, Resti said. But according to measurements taken by the scientists this morning at the burnt area, and the water level was nearly three metres below ground.

The thick layers of dried-out peat can make fires "burn faster, last longer, and spread over a much wider area", says Resti.

"The impacts of these fires are severe. The peat disappears because it gets burned and oxidised, releasing carbon emissions that contribute to climate change."

Tessa Wong
Reporting from Singapore

While the exceptionally dry conditions caused by the "super El Niño" are expected to exacerbate the fires in Indonesia, there are also deeper, more structural reasons why it may be particularly bad this year.

The think tank Singapore Institute for International Affairs (SIIA) has been tracking and analysing the haze situation for years. In a report released in June, it pointed out that recent events such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted global energy supplies.

This has led to a higher demand for biofuels, particularly from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand within South East Asia.

All this amounts to more pressure on plantation owners, especially small and medium-sized companies, to save costs and expand plantations - by setting fire to their land and waste.

"Fertiliser and energy price spikes caused by the Strait of Hormuz closure are likely to persist for months even after seaborne trade resumes, adding pressure on agricultural growers and increasing the risk that some may use fire for land clearing or waste disposal as a cost-saving measure," the report noted.

"Growers will need to meet demands for both food and fuel, increasing the risk that some might resort to expansion using unsustainable methods."

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, BBC/Haryo Wirawan

Respiratory illnesses have surged amid the haze, as residents report dealing with persistent coughs.

But an expert tells the BBC that other equally dangerous effects of toxic smog may remain invisible until years down the road.

The smallest haze particles are known as PM2.5, measuring less than 2.5 microns - that's 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

When breathed in, "they cross what we call the blood brain barrier. And that cannot be good", Jim McQuaid, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Leeds, tells the BBC. "These are poisons getting into your brain."

For one, an accumulation of these particles in the blood may lead to dementia. "You don't see dementia immediately but you're storing up this toxic material that's going to affect you in later life," McQuaid says.

PM2.5 can also enter the blood of unborn children, leading to premature birth, or affect the child's health after they're born, he says.

"The smog is inconvenient," McQuaid says. But more worryingly, he adds, the haze "has a long-term effect on the population that's hidden. You can't see that for a long, long time."

Jaltson Akkanath Chummar
Asia business producer

Image source, Getty Images

The ongoing haze crisis could cost Malaysia around $250m (£187m) a month says Ray Choy, chief economist at MARC Ratings.

The tourism and aviation sectors are expected to see the biggest impact, while businesses in the construction and transportation sector are also likely to face productivity loss, Choy told the BBC.

He adds that weaker demand for outdoor attractions, cancellations of leisure activities and potentially shorter visitor stays all could hurt the economy.

Agriculture in the country is also expected to be hit, with some of the impact visible only by next year.

Astudestra Ajengrastri
BBC News Indonesia

Forest and land fires are putting pressure on Indonesia's biodiversity, environmental group Satya Bumi has warned at the COP CBD 17 summit in Yerevan, Armenia.

The group noted that more than 202,000 hectares burned between January and July 2026, a 69% increase compared with the same period last year, with fires increasingly affecting key biodiversity areas.

Satya Bumi said the surge in fires is compounding existing threats to wildlife and ecosystems. More than half of Indonesia's key biodiversity areas remain outside protected conservation areas, while 3.68 million hectares of concessions, largely for logging and mining, overlap with these biodiversity hotspots.

The organisation also pointed to continued forest loss inside these areas. Between 2021 and 2025, around 157,700 hectares of natural forest were lost, with the largest losses recorded in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Sulawesi.

“Indonesia today has an ambitious biodiversity strategy. But on the ground, we still see mining, logging and palm oil permits being granted over the habitats of some of the world's most threatened species. Commitments without correcting these permits will only become a record of destruction,” said Sadam Afian, campaigner at Satya Bumi.

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, BBC/Haryo Wirawan

Dianyra Eka Nastiti, 30, is a stay-at-home mother who lives in Palangkaraya city with her three children. Living in one of the epicentres of the haze crisis, residents like Dianyra have been dealing with air pollution since January.

Official advice to stay indoors is "not realistic", she says, adding that she still has to go out to buy groceries and other supplies.

"I feel like the people who say things like that have no idea what is actually happening here," Dianyra says.

Image source, BBC/Haryo Wirawan

Yesterday, she travelled 30 minutes to get medicine for her baby, whose chest makes a rattling sound when she sleeps.

The baby had been hospitalised for bronchopneumonia when she was just over a month old, and Dianyra fears what the haze will do to her child's health.

"Because of that, every single night I worry: Will my child cough tomorrow? Will she be healthy tomorrow? These thoughts haunt me every night," she says.

Gavin Butler
Reporting from Singapore

Image source, Reuters

As we have reported, there are fears the fires in Indonesia could activate millennia-old "carbon bombs", as burning peatlands threaten to release huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Peatlands are waterlogged ecosystems which accumulate large amounts of semi-decomposed vegetation. They have a high carbon content, and can support forest and vegetation growth.

But if they become dry, as we have seen in these recent fires, they can also become highly flammable.

The area that's burning in Indonesia is a major peatland. It is considered globally important due to the amount of carbon that it stores and could potentially release - either as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, or carbon monoxide, a toxic gas to humans.

Susan Page, a professor of geology and environment at the University of Leicester, told the BBC that as soon as peatlands are drained, "we convert long-term carbon sinks into a short-term carbon source".

"That means that they then start to emit carbon into the atmosphere, carbon that maybe was accumulating thousands of years ago."

As the fires rage on, several deaths of young children who showed symptoms of respiratory illnesses have caught the attention of local and national media.

In East Kalimantan's Samarinda, a one-year-old toddler died on Thursday after experiencing shortness of breath, local media reported.

In Central Kalimadan's Balikpapan, a six-month-old girl died on 10 October after shortness of breath, coughing and convulsions, according to DetikNews.

In West Kalimantan's Kayong Utara Regency, a six-year-old girl died on Wednesday after suffering from a fever for several days. The mother told BBC Indonesia that the blood tests suggested typhoid and the X-ray result showed a lung infection.

Their deaths have not been directly linked to the haze. But the boy's grandfather mentioned the smoke was thick in their neighbourhood when the boy's symptoms first appeared, according to Kompas.

Image source, Muhammad Fauzi/BBC

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, Getty Images

Riduan, the head of the Palangka Raya city health office, tells the BBC that they have seen a 25% increase in acute respiratory infection cases.

The sky in the city has turned "yellow and hazy", he says.

"What are the residents actually breathing in? It’s not fresh oxygen; it’s carbon dioxide and pollutants," he says, adding that headaches develop as a result of the lack of oxygen.

Community health centres are distributing face masks and staff from the health office are paying house visits to residents who are particularly vulnerable to the haze, such as the elderly, Riduan says.

Osmond Chia and Faisal Irfani

The haze has long been a recurring problem, and has been weighing on economies across the region for decades.

This year, the fires in Indonesia could cost the country nearly 30 trillion rupiah (£1.3bn; $1.7bn) in economic losses, a study by the Center of Economic and Law Studies estimated.

The losses are a result of damage to burned assets as well as disruptions to economic activity, including trade, agriculture, and the food and accommodation sectors.

The health-related costs could also exceed 100 trillion rupiah, the research suggested.

In Malaysia, researchers estimate the haze has cost anywhere up to 400m ringgit (£74m; $98m) in healthcare fees in previous episodes.

Malaysian manufacturing groups have said poor air quality disrupts outdoor works and adds costs to companies that need to buy heavy-duty air filtration systems and other equipment.

Studies by Singapore's Nanyang Technological University estimated that one of the island-state's worst haze episodes in 2015 cost each resident about S$468 (£276.18; $365.89), with total economic losses reaching more than S$1.8bn nationwide.

Liza Tambunan
Reporting from Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Image source, Getty Images

A trip to Palangkaraya city used to be routine for rural residents like Lola Macitri, who lives about two hours' drive away in Pulang Pisau Regency.

Now that journey has become much riskier, as they have to brave stretches of toxic smog. When they finally get to the city, they are faced with the rising prices of food and other supplies.

Despite the haze, Lola says people are still working outdoors on their farms and carrying on with daily activities.

"If you ask whether we are afraid of the health risks, of course we are. But where else can we go?" she says.

"Yes, we are definitely afraid, but what choice do we have? We just have to endure and stay strong through this situation because there is simply no other option."

Indonesian lawmaker Junico Siahaan has urged the government to take a more conciliatory approach to complaints from neighbouring countries affected by transboundary haze.

“The government should respond with humility, not become defensive. When we are wrong, we should bow our heads and apologise,” he told today, according to Kompas.

He also called for stronger regional diplomacy, including following-up on Singapore's offer of assistance and cooperation on firefighting efforts.

The comments came after Singapore issued notices to at least 10 Indonesian companies suspected of links to fires and controversial remarks by an Indonesian official about their country "supplying oxygen" to neighbouring countries.

The lawmaker warned that the prolonged fire and haze crisis has become an international issue that could affect Indonesia's reputation and trust among regional partners.