Wildfires sweeping through Gunung Palung national park (a protected rainforest in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo) have burned to within 200 metres of Rangkong research station, a key outpost of the Cabang Panti field site where scientists have studied wild Bornean orangutans for over three decades. The fires, many deliberately set for land-clearing but now burning out of control due to an unusually strong El Niño-driven drought, threaten to destroy one of the world's most valuable long-term wildlife datasets — including records tracing individual apes from birth across multiple generations. More than 40 field staff and local villagers are fighting the blaze around the clock using improvised sprinkler systems and firebreaks, but scientists warn that without aerial water-bombing the main research camp could be consumed within 20 days, and that the roughly 2,500 critically endangered orangutans inhabiting the park face losing their forest habitat entirely.