PONTIANAK: Indonesian housewife Mimi Marlina rode a motorbike through thickening haze blanketing the city of Pontianak on Borneo island, making a foray to buy groceries and supplies as the Southeast Asian nation battles raging forest fires.

“We can still hold it off with medicines, but I’m concerned that if this persists, it will lead to worse illnesses,” said the mas­ked 45-year-old mother of two children who are battling respiratory problems, from coughing and sore throats to fever.

The province of West Kalimantan on Borneo, home to Pontianak, is one of the areas worst hit by Indonesia’s most intense wildfires in 11 years as “super-El Nino” weather conditions drive up temperatures and cause punishing droughts.

Despite wearing a mask, Mimi said she herself was labouring for breath in the wid­­­espread haze and pollution spikes, wh­­ich often push air quality to hazardous levels. Volunteers are going door-to-door in the province, handing out cylinders of life-giving oxygen to residents and firefighters struggling to breathe, in a campaign cal­led “Rumah Oksigen”, or Oxygen House.

The air has also turned unhealthy in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia be­­c­­­ause of the transboundary smog, often ca­­­­l­­­led haze in Southeast Asia’s humid we­­a­­­­­ther, for a mix of smoke from clearing land for farming, soot and tiny suspended particles. “Visits for respiratory illness cases are on the rise due to the fires,” said Popong Solihat, head of a public health clinic in Pontianak. More than 12.5 million people have been exposed to haze caused by fires across seven provinces on Indonesia’s islands of Borneo and Sumatra, health ministry data shows.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2026