Indonesia Employs Cloud Seeding to Combat Severe Wildfires and Toxic Haze

Indonesia has intensified its fight against forest fires by utilizing cloud seeding and water bombing as toxic haze spreads across the archipelago. The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) reported that it has poured over four million liters of water on active fire zones in recent weeks and scattered more than 8,000 kilograms of salt into clouds on a single Wednesday to trigger precipitation. These operations have resulted in light to moderate rains in west Kalimantan and the south and east of Sumatra. BNPB spokesman Berton Suar Pelita Panjaitan stated that while cloud seeding depends on atmospheric conditions, ground and air task forces continue to perform extinguishing and cooling operations.

Between January and July, fires burned more than 2,000 square kilometers of land, which is an area three times the size of Jakarta. This extent exceeds levels recorded during the El Nino seasons of 2019 and 2023. The El Nino phenomenon typically causes intense droughts in Indonesia. Many of these fires are attributed to slash and burn land clearing for agricultural purposes. Indra Syahnanda of the environmental group Walhi urged the government to address these root causes to stop the annual return of the haze.

Health officials report that more than five million people on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo have been exposed to the toxic haze. Deputy Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwono noted that approximately 13,500 people received treatment for respiratory infections in July and August. The haze has also affected people in Malaysia and Singapore, and several schools in Indonesia have closed intermittently. The health ministry has distributed roughly five million masks to the population. In Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan, NGOs have established shelters equipped with oxygen tanks and medicine for infants and children affected by the smoke.