Indonesian Officials Race to Contain Wildfires as Dozens of Schools Shut The Indonesian government is racing to contain a wildfire crisis that has ravaged over 100,000 hectares of land, forcing dozens of schools to close due to poor air quality.
While officials attribute the outbreak to El Nino, a naturally occurring climate phenomenon, the root causes run far deeper than just weather patterns.
The scale of the disaster is staggering: nearly 50,000 firefighters are deployed across six provinces, and cloud seeding aircraft are being used in an attempt to induce rain and alleviate parched conditions.