Indonesia’s most dangerous fires are burning underground

[Hidden Infernos: Indonesia’s 2026 Subterranean Fires Challenge Emissions Resolve]

Tropical peatland fires stand among the world’s most perilous and resilient wildfires. Rather than raging through forests, these infernos smolder through desiccated wetland soils and expansive peat reserves, often persisting underground at mild temperatures, which renders them notoriously difficult to extinguish and profoundly polluting.

One estimate indicates that peat fires generate three times more fine particulate matter, five times more sulfur dioxide, three times more organic carbon, and roughly twice the methane and carbon monoxide compared to other tropical forest fires.

Indonesia’s 2026 fire season was underway when NASA’s Aqua satellite’s MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument captured an image of the region on September 1, 2026.

An annotated map visualizes thermal detectors marked as “fire detection,” where each red dot marks a pixel flagged by a satellite sensor and an algorithm for thermal anomalies. A single incident can manifest as multiple detections.

Indonesia hosts roughly 36 percent of the globe’s tropical peatlands. During severe droughts, normally moist landscapes can dry sufficiently to ignite, and over the past three decades such extremes have repeatedly produced prolonged blazes that choke the air for weeks, displacing millions.

NOAA reported the presence and strengthening of El Niño in August 2026. This climate pattern typically curtails regional rainfall, intensifying drought especially when paired with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole phase.

“Robert Field, a Columbia University researcher who created the Global Fire Weather Database—a model providing experimental, real‑time fire‑weather outlooks—noted that, despite being well under four weeks into the fire season, activity is rising in harmony with the 2015 record.”

“The vigorous El Niño amps up drought conditions in fire‑prone zones, aligning precisely with the burning surge seen in 2015.”

Comparisons underscore severity: in 2015, Indonesian flames emitted about 1.75 billion tonnes of greenhouse‑gas‑equivalent emissions—exceeding Japan’s yearly output. By September 2, the 2026 infernos had burned briefly and released roughly ten percent of the total emissions generated during the 2015 crisis.

Summer 2026 delivered an unprecedented drought; the Indonesian Meteorological Agency recorded that around ninety percent of the nation received negligible precipitation in early August.

Typically, peat layers across Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua remain too saturated to fuel subsurface combustion; however, prolonged dryness can drive temperature shifts that allow flames to infiltrate peat and linger below the surface.

“Field adds that surface fires carry less immediate threat, but underground fires refuse to vanish—they endure until monsoon rains arrive in October or November.”

Indonesia monitors incidents via NASA and NOAA satellite systems, employing MODIS and VIIRS as primary sensors, with the Ministry operating the SiPongi platform and logging 946 hotspots as of August 31, 2026.

Nevertheless, remote sensing has limits: thick smoke or cloud cover can hide detectable signals, and paradoxically, the most severe emission episodes sometimes reduce MODIS/VIIRS counts because haze blocks thermal views.

“Cochrane, an ecologist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, warns that the most intense wildfire plumes are often the hardest to spot from space using these instruments,” he explained.

He further traces contemporary hazard drivers to decades of infrastructure development, such as irrigation canal damming and peat‑swamp drainage during the 1990s to support oil palm agriculture, which lowered groundwater tables and heightened combustibility.

Post‑2015 remediation efforts have targeted blocked canals, strengthened firefighting logistics, and advanced fire‑prevention campaigns.

The 2026 season constitutes a rigorous test of those post‑crisis safeguards, observing how forthcoming researchers will refine detection algorithms leveraging Landsat and Sentinel‑2 shortwave‑infrared data to reveal hidden understory fires.

“Hazardous smoke is already disrupting daily routines, with schools pivoting to virtual instruction, multiple national parks closed, and numerous flights postponed due to reduced visibility,” officials reported.

“Public attention peaks during acute El Niño fire surges and wanes afterward,” cautioned Cochrane. “Sustained focus is required to mitigate these far‑reaching emissions.”

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