Study: El Niño, Warming Intensify Indonesia Wildfires

A World Weather Attribution analysis found that a strong El Niño drove Indonesia’s severe rainfall deficit this year, while human-caused climate change raised temperatures and made hot, dry fire conditions about three times more likely and more intense. Decades of deforestation and drainage of peatlands for agriculture, mining and logging have left the landscape especially vulnerable to fires. The fires burned nearly 2.88 million hectares through October, sending hazardous haze across Indonesia and neighboring countries, sickening people and disrupting schools and palm oil production. Indonesia’s climate envoy said the government is expanding fire prevention, restoration, enforcement and regional cooperation, including increasing forest rangers and firefighters and establishing a peat and mangrove agency.