Indonesian police on Sunday arrested 72 people suspected of deliberately igniting forest and peatland fires that have sent choking smoke across parts of Southeast Asia. The suspects are being investigated in connection with 89 fire cases across nine provinces — five on the island of Borneo and four on Sumatra, Indonesia's two largest landmasses — as the country battles some of its worst fire conditions in years.
Mohammad Irhamni, director of special crimes at the National Police's Criminal Investigation Agency, said most of those arrested are accused of burning land to clear it for plantations, a cheaper method than mechanical clearing. Authorities are now tracing financial records to determine whether companies funded or directed the land clearing, signalling that the investigation could expand significantly. "We will not stop at the perpetrators on the ground," Irhamni said at a Sunday press conference in Jakarta. "We will determine who benefited from these activities and who was ultimately behind them." Those charged face penalties ranging from heavy fines to prison sentences of up to 15 years. At least four companies in West Kalimantan province are already under investigation and could face sanctions including the revocation of their operating permits.
The fires are being driven by an intensifying El Niño weather pattern and a prolonged dry season. A particular complication is Indonesia's vast peatlands — thick layers of compressed organic matter that can smoulder long after surface flames appear extinguished. "Fires that appear extinguished on the surface may still contain embers underneath, so sufficient rainfall is crucial to rewet the peat and fully suppress the fires," said Suharyanto, head of Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency. In Central Kalimantan province alone, more than 7,600 hectares have burned, and Indonesia's Environment Ministry recorded over 3,700 hot spots across Borneo on Sunday. On Sumatra, more than 1,700 hot spots were detected, with visibility in some areas reduced to just 10 metres. Authorities have deployed 30 helicopters for water-bombing and cloud-seeding operations over Kalimantan and a further 22 over Sumatra.
President Prabowo Subianto flew to Central Kalimantan on Saturday to oversee the response, promising the necessary government resources and vowing to hold accountable any companies found responsible. "We have experienced worse forest and land fires in the past, and we were able to overcome them," he said.
The crisis has spilled across Indonesia's borders, with dense smoke reaching Malaysia. The eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak — located on Borneo, which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei — has been among the hardest hit, with one district recording "very unhealthy" air quality and eight others logging unhealthy readings. Nearly 600 schools were closed, affecting around 200,000 students. Transboundary haze from Indonesian fires is a long-standing source of regional tension, and the latest episode underscores the scale of the environmental and public health challenge that recurring land-clearing burns continue to pose across the region.