Indonesia weighs foreign fire-fighting aid as it battles peatland blazes

After a cabinet meeting at the Presidential Palace, the head of Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency, Kristomei Sianturi, announced that the government is inventorying its fire-fighting requirements before accepting overseas help. Singapore's proposal includes relief supplies and a C-130 Hercules, which Indonesia says is unnecessary because it already has a fleet of those aircraft. Malaysia has offered three helicopters and a team of 52 staff, and authorities are evaluating how to deploy that support on the ground.

Efforts to curb the blazes also involve weather-modification operations using dry ice to clear smoke and trials of the Brazilian chemical agent Realiza Anti Chamas in South Sumatra. To date, fire crews have extinguished 502 of the 983 hectares targeted across six priority provinces, focusing on peat-rich areas of South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan, Jambi, South and West Kalimantan, and Riau.