Borneo fires: Dozens of orangutans saved as smoke envelopes Southeast Asia

Several dozen orangutans, a species classified as critically endangered, have been saved in recent weeks from forest fires ravaging regions of the Southeast Asian archipelago, NGOs said on Sunday.

These fires are the cause of air pollution by toxic fumes which has lasted for months and has led to the closure of schools, a sharp increase in respiratory disorders in humans and animals, and restrictions on outdoor activities in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and East Timor.

Air pollution levels oscillate again from "unhealthy" to "very unhealthy" in the region on Sunday. The fires on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo and on the island of Sumatra, intensified by a powerful El Niño phenomenon, continued to emit smoke on Sunday which spread particularly to Singapore and Malaysia, neighboring countries of Indonesia.

Wildlife rescue operations

Swiss air quality monitoring system IQAir once again ranked Singapore and Kuala Lumpur among the world's five most polluted major cities on Sunday afternoon.

Singapore has now recorded "the longest period of air quality being in the 'unhealthy' category since 2015," noted Jason Evans Tan, deputy director of the National Environment Agency of Singapore, specifying that the current episode began on October 5.

In Indonesia, rescue operations for wildlife threatened by fires, particularly orangutans, are continuing. “From August 6 to October 10, 2026, a joint team evacuated 51 orangutans from several sites (...) in West Kalimantan (on the island of Borneo, editor's note), as the fires increasingly affected their habitat,” the West Kalimantan natural resources conservation agency and the Indonesian environmental protection organization YIARI said in a statement.

According to data published this week by the Indonesian Ministry of Forests, the number of monkeys rescued in recent months in Kalimantan could reach 96. Contacted by AFP, officials could not immediately be reached.

In the latest rescue on Saturday, three NGOs rescued a 20-year-old male orangutan in Hampangen, a village in Central Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo. “The evacuation process was carried out with the utmost caution,” said the NGO Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, the Central Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency and WWF Indonesia. “After anesthetizing the orangutan, the medical team immediately carried out a health examination before transporting the animal to the (...) rehabilitation center,” these organizations specified.

“We don’t have enough rain”

Another consequence of the forest fires is that around 2,400 flights across the country have been affected by toxic fumes since mid-August, according to the Indonesian Ministry of Transport. “Fog reduces visibility around airports, which can lead to delays, disruptions and even cancellations of flights,” the ministry adds.

Wang Jingyu, an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the region is in the grip of a super El Niño phenomenon. Because of “the super El Niño across the whole of South-East Asia, the sea surface temperature is colder than normal,” he explains to AFP. “A colder sea surface temperature means we don't have enough evaporation from the ocean,” leading to a lack of rain, he adds: “We don't have enough rain. The fire cannot be easily extinguished.

The drought has been made worse by more typhoons in East Asia, Wang said. Typhoons “absorb moisture like a sponge,” diverting it away from fire-affected areas, he added.