Indonesia wildfires have driven more than 113,000 people to seek treatment for respiratory conditions. Scientific American cites health ministry figures. El Niño is helping create the dry conditions that allow the fires to spread. The Pacific climate event involves warmer waters shifting eastward. The Indonesian fires also reach beyond the burning ground: officials say more than 12.5 million people have encountered the resulting haze, which has spread to neighboring countries. [1]
Indonesia Wildfires and Respiratory Care
Indonesia’s health ministry put the number of people treated for fire-related respiratory conditions at 113,336 as of September 9, according to Adam Kovac’s September 10 report in Scientific American, which cites Reuters and quotes the ministry spokesperson as saying the count had more than doubled since the start of September. Respiratory illness is the category counted. The report does not provide a breakdown by diagnosis, patient age or severity. Nor does it identify how many patients required an overnight hospital stay. [1, 2] PerEXP Teamworks’ coverage of rising global emissions from extreme forest fires examines the worldwide trend. Here, the focus is Indonesia’s respiratory treatment burden and peatland smoke.
Officials separately reported more than 12.5 million people exposed to the haze. Exposure and treatment measure different things. The larger total describes people who encountered the pollution, while the smaller count concerns those who received care for respiratory conditions linked to the fires. Treating the figures as interchangeable would substantially misstate the reported health burden. The article gives no exposure-counting method. The totals cannot establish an individual person’s likelihood of becoming ill. [1]
The figures end on September 9. They do not describe the eventual toll of the full fire season.
How Does El Niño Help Fires Spread?
El Niño changes the conditions around a fire: Kovac describes warming Pacific waters shifting eastward, affecting global winds and sea levels and changing rainfall across different regions; some places experience stronger storms while others receive unusually little rain. Indonesia is particularly sensitive because of its position relative to the Pacific region where the event develops. Drought is the immediate connection. Dry conditions make it easier for fires to spread through underground peat deposits. [1]
The 2026 event began forming in June. Scientific American reports predictions that it could become one of the strongest recorded, possibly the strongest. The ranking remains a forecast. The article does not identify the forecast model, its probability range or the measurement used to rank strength. Its explanation supports a link between El Niño, reduced rainfall and fire spread; it does not identify what ignited each fire or assign every part of the outbreak to the climate event. [1]
PerEXP Teamworks’ coverage of deforestation and El Niño–Southern Oscillation unpredictability in the Maritime Continent examines a related regional climate question. Here, the immediate issue is the drought accompanying an active outbreak.
Why Does Burning Peat Matter?
Indonesia’s fires are concentrated in peatlands (wetland ecosystems), according to Kovac. Peat fires can emit more airborne particles and harmful compounds than other vegetation fires. The fuel matters. Particulates are particles in the polluted air. Kovac identifies them as part of the danger. He supplies no community-level measurements of particle concentrations, chemical composition or exposure duration. A national treatment total cannot fill those gaps or show which locations experienced the most polluted air. [1]
Fire can spread below ground, and severe drought makes that underground spread easier, according to the report’s account of conditions in Indonesia. The peat deposits extend the problem beyond the vegetation visible at the surface: understanding the outbreak requires attention to what is burning underneath as well as the haze above. Nisa Novita, a peatland researcher at Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara, told BBC journalist Gavin Butler that drainage makes these carbon stores vulnerable. University of Leicester peatland specialist Susan Page also links plantation drainage to increased fire risk. [1, 4]
Kovac connects the peatland concentration to the respiratory burden. He does not present a clinical study separating the effects of individual smoke components, and the available evidence does not support naming one chemical as the cause of all reported cases. Mongabay describes Siti Sarah’s asthma worsening amid smoke in Pengayuan, South Kalimantan. Syamsul Arifin, dean of Lambung Mangkurat University’s medical faculty, explains that fine particles can reach the lungs and bloodstream. Provincial health chief Diauddin nevertheless cautioned that a link between local infection counts and fires was not yet established. [3]
Haze Across National Borders
Haze from the Indonesia wildfires has reached Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, Scientific American reports. Although the smoke has crossed national borders, the health figures cited earlier come from Indonesian officials; the article does not provide equivalent treatment counts for the three neighboring countries. Its account establishes the reported geographic reach of the haze, without showing that residents in each country experienced the same concentrations or the same health effects. [1]
Indonesia’s burning peatlands create a pollution problem that extends beyond the immediate fire locations. However, the report offers no country-by-country air-quality readings, transport timeline or map of exposure. The account cannot rank Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines by health impact. Their populations cannot simply be added to Indonesia’s exposure total. The 12.5 million figure belongs to the official account quoted in the news report, with no separate regional estimate supplied. [1]
Japan sent the landing ship JS Kunisaki to Mempawah, West Kalimantan, to support firefighting. Associated Press reporters Edna Tarigan and Andi Jatmiko describe the mission’s arrival through haze. Colonel Syunji Nakahara said Japanese forces would coordinate with Indonesia’s military. [5]
Carbon Emissions and Their Limits
Fire Emissions Watch puts Indonesia’s 2026 wildfire emissions at 12.82 megatons of carbon, according to Kovac. The report describes that amount as nearly 100 times the country’s wildfire carbon emissions during all of 2025. The comparison spans different periods: a running total for 2026 and a completed calendar year for 2025. It demonstrates the scale of the reported increase without providing a forecast for the rest of this year. The unit also matters. Kovac reports carbon, so relabeling the number as megatons of carbon dioxide would change what the source actually says. The article supplies no uncertainty range or detailed calculation method for the estimate. [1]
The Indonesia wildfires produce both a reported carbon release and a large respiratory treatment burden. Fire Emissions Watch’s emissions estimate and the health ministry’s patient count answer separate questions. Neither figure measures the other outcome. Neither establishes how much illness corresponds to a given amount of carbon.
Guido R. van der Werf and colleagues’ Global Fire Emissions Database study in Scientific Data, linked by Kovac, provides the underlying emissions research. Their GFED5 dataset combines burned-area estimates, fuel modelling and emission factors to describe fire pollution, although it does not validate Indonesia’s current treatment count or supply the separate Fire Emissions Watch estimate. [6]
Could the Season Resemble 2015?
Indonesia experienced major El Niño-linked fires in 1997 and 2015. Kovac reports more than 100,000 peatland fires in 2015. Their smoke led to half a million hospitalizations for respiratory, eye and skin ailments. The current report describes drought conditions resembling those of 2015, citing NASA data. A similar drought does not establish an identical outcome. The historical hospitalization figure covers several categories of illness, while the September 2026 treatment count concerns respiratory conditions, making a direct comparison of patient totals unreliable. [1]
The rainy season usually provides the next turning point in this account: Kovac reports that drought will likely persist until rains begin in October or November. The timing remains uncertain. His article gives no exact date for rainfall recovery. Nor does it predict when respiratory treatment numbers will decline. For Indonesia wildfires, the unresolved question is how much further the health burden will grow before the dry conditions ease; the September figures cannot yet answer it. [1]
- ONLINE NEWS Kovac, A. (2026, September 10). El Niño fuels wildfires in Indonesia, sickening some 100,000 people. Scientific American. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Reuters. (n.d.). [Reporting on Indonesian health ministry figures for fire-related respiratory treatment; as cited in A. Kovac, Scientific American, September 10, 2026]. Original Reuters report not supplied; link points to the secondary account. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Mongabay. (2026, September 10). Children’s health at risk in south Borneo as El Niño intensifies Indonesia wildfires. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Butler, G. (2026, September 6). Indonesia fires: The volunteer firefighters risking their lives to defuse ‘carbon bombs’. BBC News. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Tarigan, E., & Jatmiko, A. (2026, September 10). Japan deploys equipment to Indonesia’s Borneo to help fight wildfires causing toxic haze. Associated Press, via Mongabay. [Article Link]
- ACADEMIC JOURNAL van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., van Wees, D., Chen, Y., Giglio, L., Hall, J., Vernooij, R., Mu, M., Shahid, S. B., Barsanti, K. C., Yokelson, R., & Morton, D. C. (2025). Landscape fire emissions from the 5th version of the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED5). Scientific Data, 12, 1870. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06127-w [Article Link]
APA 7: PerEXP Teamworks. (2026, September 11). Smoke from Indonesia wildfires sends thousands for care.
