Presidential order and government response

Indonesia's government said on 13 October that President Prabowo Subianto had ordered additional resources to fight the wildfires, as criticism mounted at home and abroad over Jakarta's response. In a meeting with national authorities, Prabowo said he was ready to supply every resource needed to strengthen firefighting across the country, according to a statement from the government's communication body. Earlier, on 12 October, he had ordered the government to deploy maximum effort against fires that in some places have been burning for three months. The statement quoted him calling the matter a priority that had to be dealt with at once.

This is a top priority for us. We must resolve it immediately.

Coordinating Minister of Political Affairs Dudung Abdurachman told reporters that Jakarta had not yet discussed accepting foreign assistance or declaring a national disaster. He said the government was still managing the situation on its own.

We are still able to handle this.

Malaysia and Singapore have both offered help to contain the fires. Singapore's Environment Minister Grace Fu has said she spoke to her Indonesian counterparts.

Haze across the region

Reuters describes this as Indonesia's most intense El Niño-fueled wildfire season in 11 years. The smoke has caused a spike in respiratory illnesses at home and a sharp fall in air quality in Singapore and Malaysia, where schools in several states have been closed. According to Fire Emissions Watch, a portal developed by the EU's Copernicus climate monitoring service, Indonesian fire emissions have been the highest in the world for a month and made up almost half of the global total in the portal's latest seven-day reading. Italian broadcaster Rai reported that air quality in Singapore had fallen to its lowest level since 2015, the worst year on record so far, and that the government advised limiting outdoor activity.

On 14 October, a Singapore air quality gauge reached the government's highest category in parts of the city-state. Syahganda Nainggolan, head of Indonesia's Government Communication Agency, hit back at some of the criticism in remarks that went viral, saying the country does not only export haze and that Singapore and Malaysia depend on Indonesian forests for their oxygen. Andrew Chen Kah Eng, head of the Johor state branch of Pakatan Harapan, the coalition of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, said Indonesia "must be held accountable." Southeast Asian foreign ministers are due to discuss the transboundary haze at a meeting in November 2026.

Village fire on Sumatra

In Bangka Belitung province on Sumatra, a forest fire destroyed nearly 300 homes and forced nearly 1,000 people to flee, according to the local disaster agency. Residents first saw the blaze approaching their village on 10 October and tried to put it out themselves with portable pumps. Riza Herdavid, head of South Bangka regency, said the villagers had believed the danger was over.

But it's peatland, and there was still a fire smouldering underneath.

Riza Herdavid also said the village had been built on former peatland inside a protected area and converted into a housing complex last year. Thick smoke in a Borneo province has grounded water-bombing aircraft, according to the disaster agency. Cabinet secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said the government had deployed more than 60,000 personnel on the ground.

Enforcement, legal pressure and regional response

The independent forest monitor Nusantara Atlas has recorded 1,043,377 hotspots in Indonesia, which it says have burned about 900,000 hectares. Authorities suspended the operating licences of 26 companies linked to the fires in September 2026 and opened investigations into others, with officials vowing that cases involving criminal elements would go to court. Prabowo has called for tougher sanctions on slash-and-burn farming and described the practice as "ecological terrorism." A Greenpeace report published in October 2026 linked businesses based in Singapore and Malaysia to Indonesian land where fires are burning, including First Resources, a Singapore-based palm oil company. Indonesia's disaster agency BNPB recorded 6,811 hotspots across six provinces as of 11 October 2026, and said 1,673 domestic flights had been disrupted since the fires began. Greenpeace Indonesia's Asep Komarudin argued that the 2002 ASEAN haze agreement lacks strong sanctions for non-compliance. Foreign Minister Arrmantha Nasir answered Anwar Ibrahim's call to Prabowo by listing Indonesia's measures, from water bombing to cloud seeding.