13/09/2026
๐ฆ๐๐-๐ง๐๐๐ | ๐๐ฟ๐ผ๐บ ๐๐น๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฒ: ๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ป๐ฑ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ฎโ๐ ๐๐ถ๐น๐ฑ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ป๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ฎ๐น ๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐ฎ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐?
by Vanessa Ricamata and Khenn Niez
The threat of a wildfire does not end when its flames disappear.
The news flared like the blaze engulfing the vast peatlands of Kalimantan, Indonesia. Over 202,000 hectares of forest and land burned in the first seven months of the year, according to a September 8 report by The Nation. Yet as these fires crawl across mountain slopes, destruction takes on an airborne life. Swept up by regional winds, toxic smoke crosses seas to reach neighboring populations thousands of kilometers away. Beyond a visual nuisance, the transboundary haze forces entire nations to breathe the hazardous consequences of fires they did not start.
THE BLAZE
But as big the catastrophe may seem, the news didnโt spread quite as fast as the forest fires. The region and parts of the country had its โwildfire seasonโ earlier in the present year. Science Daily tracked the incidentโs early hotspots. As per records, it began springing up slowly across peatland regions in Sumatra and Kalimantan in January to June as early dry conditions began before escalating in July. The United Nations reported that the ongoing El Niรฑo weather phenomenon could turn out to be the strongest in four decades, making Indonesiaโs vegetation easily flammable.
In midโlate August, a new epicenter emerged in Merauke, South Papua, driven by peatland degradation and land clearing for large-scale agricultural food estate and energy projects. As Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) senior scientist Mark Parrington noted to AFP, "El Niรฑo does not ignite fires.โ Intense heat, though an element of a wildfire, it is not the sole cause of it. It only create ideal conditions for localized ignitions like human-started fires to escape and become very large to transform into uncontrolled, widespread wildfires.
With both season and human operation as main contributors of the wildfire, they are the ignitor of every emerging hazard.
THE HAZE
Till early September, fires across Kalimantan and Sumatra triggered widespread toxic haze. Dense smoke crossed maritime borders, causing unhealthy air pollution levels, hazardous air quality indices, and school closures across neighboring Malaysian states such as Sarawak and parts of the region. Locally, the resulting transboundary haze drove air quality in Philippines reached "very unhealthy" and "severely unhealthy" levels. The severe atmospheric pollution forced school closures and caused sharp spikes in acute respiratory illnesses across the country.
THE PEAT
What makes Indonesian wildfires so much worse than blazes in the Amazon? The answer lies in the vegetation. Tropical peatland fires smolder underground through dried wetland soils and thick carbon deposits rather than racing across surface foliage.
Think of regular rainforests as surface leaves and twigs. These materials are easy to ignite and extinguish.
Peatlands act like a subterranean charcoal grill. They glow red beneath the ash without surface flames, producing massive, blinding smoke. Surface water cannot easily reach the subterranean burn; coals continue smoldering for days and re-ignite with a single gust of wind. Because peatlands store dense, pure carbon underground, burning them releases up to 10 times more carbon emissions per hectare than a standard forest fire.
These fires inflict severe, long-term damage on public health, regional infrastructure, and ecosystems well beyond the burn site. While low-intensity fires naturally help clear forest understory brush, intensified climate change and human encroachment trigger blazes with unprecedented frequency and severity. What burns in a matter of hours will take decades of ecological succession to restore, and it leaves neighboring nations to endure the toxic haze of a disaster whose flames they never saw, but whose consequences they cannot escape.
Davao del Norte State College
DNSC ITED- Local Student Government
DNSC IBPA - Local Student Government
DNSC IAAS - Local Student Government
DNSC IC - Local Student Government
Layout by Vanz Kurt Sazon
Photo Courtesy: ABS-CBN News
