Indonesia's 2026 fire season has torched a record 2.88 million hectares, making it the country's most destructive year of burning on record.
The blazes, fueled in part by a powerful El Nino, have consumed an area roughly 18 times the size of London, with the total climbing by nearly a million hectares since September alone.
That figure is almost certainly a low estimate, since thick smoke has blocked satellite cameras from seeing the full extent of the damage, and more burn scars will surface as the haze clears in the coming months.
Rain has tamed some of the worst fires and the number of active hotspots is finally flattening, yet blazes still smolder across several regions and the burned total is expected to keep rising.
Indonesia burns every dry season, but this year's ferocity traces back to a punishing El Nino drought layered over decades of deforestation and drained peatlands that turn vast stretches of land into fuel.
The fallout has spilled far beyond the country, with toxic haze drifting across borders into Malaysia and Singapore and pollution sickening hundreds of thousands of people.