Qualla: 1997 Southeast Asian Haze

1997 Southeast Asian Haze: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On September mornings in 1997, residents of Palembang, Jambi, and Pontianak woke to a sky the color of rust. Visibility dropped below 100 meters. Schools closed. Airports shut down. The air tasted of ash and carried a particulate load that hospitals across six countries would be measuring for months. What had started as seasonal agricultural burning in the forests and peatlands of Sumatra and Kalimantan had become the worst transboundary air pollution disaster Southeast Asia had ever seen -- a catastrophe whose economic toll would eventually reach an estimated US$9 billion.

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1997 Southeast Asian Haze: Fire Season Without End

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Slash-and-burn agriculture had long been the cheapest method for clearing land across Indonesia's outer islands. Smallholders used it to prepare fields for rice and rubber. Plantation companies used it on an industrial scale to convert forest to oil palm. In provinces where land ...

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1997 Southeast Asian Haze: A Haze That Crossed Borders

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. By mid-September, NASA satellite imagery showed an unbroken haze layer stretching more than three million square kilometers. It blanketed Sumatra and Kalimantan, drifted north across Malaysia and Singapore, reached Brunei, Thailand, and the Philippines, and extended westward as f...

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1997 Southeast Asian Haze: The Cost of Smoke

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The economic damage rippled outward in concentric circles. Airports closed or diverted flights when visibility dropped too low for safe operations. Shipping slowed. Construction projects halted. Tourism collapsed across the region during what should have been peak season. A joint...

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1997 Southeast Asian Haze: Smoldering Legacy

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The 1997 disaster did not end the burning. Southeast Asian haze events recurred in 2005, 2006, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2019, each one driven by the same combination of agricultural clearing, weak enforcement, and dry weather. The 2015 event rivaled 1997 in severity. But the 1997 cr...

Image: Public domain