Fire activity across Borneo and Sumatra
Explore recent and historical satellite fire detections across Borneo and Sumatra. See where fires overlap with plantations, protected areas, and orangutan habitat.
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When did fire activity increase?
The map above shows where satellite detections occurred. This timeline uses the same historical observations to show how activity changed each day across Borneo and Sumatra.
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What does the smoke mean on the ground?
These air-quality readings come from a regional monitor in Pangkalan Bun, near Tanjung Puting. They show current conditions, not air quality on historical fire-map dates. Take precautions when pollution levels are high.
Data: World Air Quality Index Project BMKG / CWOP
Why is Indonesia burning again?
Indonesian authorities say human activity is a major cause of the 2026 forest and land fires. As of September 18, police had opened 219 criminal investigations and named 162 people as suspects. Police are also investigating 95 companies in connection with the fires. Many investigated fires involve land being deliberately burned for clearing, while prolonged dry conditions are making fires easier to spread and harder to extinguish.
Why land is burned
- Burning removes felled trees and cleared vegetation at a lower cost than mechanical clearing.
- Fire is used to prepare land for farming and plantations, including oil palm and pulpwood.
- Land-clearing fires can start on company estates or small farms.
How clearing increases fire risk
- Drainage canals lower the water table, drying peat that would naturally remain waterlogged.
- Logging and clearing open the forest canopy, allowing the ground and leftover vegetation to dry.
- Fires lit to clear land can escape into surrounding forest, particularly during drought.
- Once dry peat ignites, fire can smoulder underground and persist long after the surface flames have gone.
A fire can outlast the flames.
When forest and peatland burn, the effects continue after the flames are gone. Orangutans can lose feeding trees, nesting sites and safe canopy routes, while people across the region can face prolonged smoke exposure, disruption and an increased risk of premature death. Wildlife that escapes the fire may still face displacement, hunger and degraded habitat afterward.
Peat can keep burning below the surface.
Many important orangutan forests in Borneo and Sumatra grow on peat. When peat is drained, it dries and becomes much more vulnerable to fire. Unlike a surface burn, peat can smoulder underground and be difficult to extinguish.
Repeated burning also changes the forest itself, making future fires easier to start and harder for the original ecosystem to recover from.
Smoke affects orangutans that survive the fire.
A 2018 study at the Tuanan Research Station in Central Kalimantan followed four adult flanged male Bornean orangutans around the severe 2015 fire season. During and after the smoke period, the animals rested more, travelled less, and later showed evidence of increased fat use. The researchers concluded that wildfire smoke negatively affected orangutan condition, while noting the study’s small sample size.
How to read the map.
Satellite detections show likely fire activity, not exact burned areas. Cloud cover, smoke and satellite timing can cause some fires to be missed.
Aerosol optical depth measures particles in the atmosphere, so elevated values can reflect wildfire smoke but can also include dust and pollution. The orangutan range overlay is generalized and should not be read as an exact habitat boundary.
NASA data and map services (4)
2026 fire reporting and enforcement (4)
See More of the Picture
Fire is one part of a connected habitat crisis that also includes forest conversion, fragmentation, mining, plantations and conflict with people.
Explore Orangutan Threats- Habitat loss
- Oil palm plantations
- Illegal wildlife trade
- Human-wildlife conflict
- Mining and roads