A young orangutan has been pulled from the wildfires burning across Indonesian Borneo, in a rescue that highlights the growing toll of this year's fire season on one of the world's most endangered great apes. The female, named Novita and estimated to be three to four years old, was found clinging to a tree in Central Kalimantan, the Indonesian province on the southern part of Borneo, on 26 September. She had burns on her hands and feet after crossing flames.

Rescuers from the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS Foundation), an Indonesian conservation group, tranquilised her and gave her oxygen and intravenous fluids. She was then taken to the Nyaru Menteng rehabilitation centre in Palangkaraya, the provincial capital. On Thursday, officials said her burns were improving but cautioned that she might not make a full recovery.

Novita is one of dozens of orangutans rescued from fires across Sumatra and Borneo in recent months. The fires have intensified during Indonesia's dry season, amid a drought linked to El Niño, a climate pattern that tends to bring drier conditions to parts of Southeast Asia. Government figures put the area burned between January and July at more than 202,000 hectares. Satellite monitoring by Nusantara Atlas, however, estimated that nearly 896,000 hectares had burned by the end of August, a much larger figure that reflects the difference between the two sets of data and the longer period covered.

The fires are destroying orangutan habitat and worsening regional haze. The smoke has also affected the animals directly: orangutans at the BOS Foundation's care facility in Central Kalimantan have developed respiratory symptoms.

Why this matters: orangutans live only on Borneo and Sumatra, and depend on forest for food and shelter. When fires sweep through their range, young animals in particular can be separated from their mothers, injured or left without territory. Rescue centres such as Nyaru Menteng care for such animals, but their capacity is limited, and Novita's uncertain recovery illustrates how severe the consequences can be even for those who are saved. The gap between official and satellite estimates of burned land also shows how difficult it remains to measure the full scale of the damage as the dry season continues.