1.43 million Indonesian pupils go remote as haze from Sumatra and Borneo fires turns hazardous

About 1.43 million students in six Indonesian provinces were studying from home as of 2 September because of smoke from forest and land fires. Gogot Suharwoto, an education ministry official, said the shift covered 12,874 schools. It began on 31 August and was set to run through 4 September, with a review every three days. Remote learning is supposed to start when the Air Pollution Standard Index in a district crosses 200. A reading above 300 is classed as hazardous.

West Kalimantan accounts for 1.1 million of the pupils and has had the largest burn this year. Southeast Pontianak hit 1,023 on 3 September. Other parts of Kalimantan also sat above 200, some above 1,000. Gogot told principals they could act at once and did not need to wait for a longer consultation chain.

The smoke does not stop at the provincial line

The six provinces named by the ministry are Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra on Sumatra, and West, Central and South Kalimantan on Borneo. Central Kalimantan has logged 8,572 hotspots, West Kalimantan 7,617, South Kalimantan 1,450. Cloud-seeding and firefighting flights have been hampered by the same smoke they are trying to fight. Tens of thousands of officers are in the field.

The haze has already crossed borders. In Sarawak, Malaysia, several districts recorded unhealthy Air Pollution Index readings. Face-to-face classes were suspended in Kuching, Samarahan, Serian, Sri Aman and Betong. On 3 September IQAir ranked Kuching the most polluted major city on its global list, with an AQI of 277. Philippine monitors in Metro Manila recorded unhealthy PM2.5 at seven stations on the morning of 2 September. The environment department linked the spike to smoke carried from Kalimantan. Health alerts have been discussed for southern Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam if the plume keeps moving.

The hospital file

Indonesia Ministry of Health said that from July to August more than 50,000 respiratory infections were recorded in connection with the fires, including more than 12,000 children under five. Teams and oxygen supplies have been sent to the worst districts. The El Niño now under way, which the World Meteorological Organization has already flagged as likely to run hot into 2027, is the climate backdrop. Some of the fires are still set to clear land. Peat soils then keep burning under the surface after the flames on top are gone.

This is not a new Indonesian story. The 2015 and 2019 seasons wrote the same script: peat, palm, a dry monsoon, a plume over the Strait of Malacca. What is new in this week numbers is the school count and the Pontianak index. A four-digit pollution reading is not a weather curiosity. It is a reason a primary class in Pontianak is on a screen, if the household has one, and a reason a clinic in Banjarbaru is counting inhalers.

The three-day review means the 4 September date is not a reopening promise. If the index stays above 200, the ministry will extend. That is the only number school principals have been told to watch.