Indonesia wildfires drive record haze, prompting school closures in East Timor and soaring Singapore pollution

On Wednesday, Singapore’s air-quality monitor logged a one-hour PM2.5 level of 284 µg/m³ in its western sector, pushing the reading into the National Environmental Agency’s “very high” band for the first time this haze episode. Meanwhile, the government of East Timor ordered a three-day suspension of in-person schooling from Oct 15, citing contamination from pollutant particles generated by wildfires in neighboring regions.

The fires are burning in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, where an El Niño-linked dry spell has produced the country’s most severe wildfire season in 11 years. The haze has already prompted school closures in several Malaysian states and a surge in respiratory illnesses throughout the area. President Prabowo Subianto has directed additional resources to the fight, with the Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs reporting that more than 69,000 firefighting personnel are now deployed, up from about 44,000 in mid-September, and that new chemical suppression techniques are being trialled. Disaster mitigation agency officials warned that peatland fires can reignite without sustained rainfall, underscoring the difficulty of fully extinguishing the blazes.