Indonesia's 2026 Fires Have Burned Nearly 2.9 Million Hectares

Indonesia also suffered devastating fires in 2015, but the satellite imagery used at the time differed from today's, which makes a direct comparison between the two years difficult.

In short: the record-breaking figure is a floor, not a ceiling, and it may still rise.

What does the government say?

Indonesia's government has not released official burned-area figures since announcing that 202,000 hectares (499,000 acres) had been razed by the end of July. That official count now lags the satellite estimate by more than 2.6 million hectares.

Forestry ministry spokesman Ristianto Pribadi told AFP the government is still working on updated estimates of fire-affected land, without committing to a release date.

"Updating the data on the size of land and forest fires-affected areas requires in-depth confirmation and verification," Ristianto said. "At the moment, we cannot yet confirm a schedule for the announcement."

In short: official numbers are months behind, and no date exists for when they will catch up.

Why was this year so severe?

Indonesia experiences fires every dry season, but several forces stacked up in 2026.

An intense drought driven by the El Niño weather pattern — a warming of the Pacific Ocean surface that shifts rainfall patterns across the tropics — dried out vegetation and made landscapes easier to ignite.

Experts also point to longer-term causes. Decades of deforestation and the draining of peatlands — waterlogged, carbon-rich soils — for plantation agriculture have left large swaths of land dried out and far more vulnerable to fire. Once peat ignites, it can burn underground and release thick smoke for weeks.

In short: a strong climate pattern landed on land that decades of conversion had already primed to burn.

What has the damage been?

The fires have produced severe local pollution that has sickened hundreds of thousands of people, according to the report. Haze has also drifted across borders into neighboring countries, including Malaysia and Singapore, repeating a pattern familiar from previous major fire years in the region.

For practitioners tracking land-use change, the Nusantara Atlas numbers offer the most current independent benchmark available while official verification proceeds. The gap between the 202,000-hectare July figure and the 2.88-million-hectare satellite estimate shows how quickly the situation moved after mid-summer.

**The bottom line: 2026 is now the worst fire year in Nusantara Atlas' record, and the final burned area will only grow.