Qualla: 2006 Southeast Asian Haze

2006 Southeast Asian Haze: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tdxiang at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. "If we do not burn the forest, where are we going to get our food from?" The villager in Central Kalimantan said it plainly, without apology, while a Malaysian journalist gagged on smoke beside him. It was October 2006, and the forests of Borneo were on fire. Not by accident, not by lightning, but by design. Every year, plantation workers and smallholder farmers across Sumatra and Kalimantan set fires to clear land for the growing season. Most years, the monsoon arrived in time to douse the worst of it. In 2006, the monsoon never came on schedule. El Nino delayed the rains by weeks, then months, and the fires burned into peatland that would smolder for the rest of the year. Satellite images taken over Borneo on October 4 revealed 561 active hotspots. The smoke did not stay in Indonesia.

Image: Tdxiang at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

2006 Southeast Asian Haze: A Sky the Color of Ash

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. SpLoT assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. The haze spread across national borders with the indifference of weather. Malaysia's Klang Valley, hemmed in by hills that trapped polluted air like a bowl, recorded Air Pollution Index readings nearing 200, the threshold for "unhealthy." In Kuching, Sarawak, visibility dropped t...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. SpLoT assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5

2006 Southeast Asian Haze: When Peat Burns

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 2.5. The chemistry of the disaster lay underground. Kalimantan's peatlands, built up over millennia from decomposing tropical vegetation, can extend meters deep. Once ignited, peat fires burn slowly, stubbornly, and almost invisibly, smoldering beneath the surface and releasing gases ...

Image: CC BY 2.5

2006 Southeast Asian Haze: Grounded

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tdxiang at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The haze did not merely irritate lungs and obscure views. It disrupted the machinery of modern life. A Mandala Airlines flight from Balikpapan skidded off the runway at Tarakan on October 3 when visibility fell to 400 meters. On October 21, twelve airlines canceled domestic fligh...

Image: Tdxiang at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

2006 Southeast Asian Haze: Neighbors at the Breaking Point

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tdxiang at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The diplomacy was as acrid as the air. Malaysia and Singapore demanded that Indonesia ratify the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, a treaty specifically created for this recurring crisis. Malaysian Environment Minister Azmi Khalid told the press that "frustration i...

Image: Tdxiang at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

2006 Southeast Asian Haze: Waiting for the Monsoon

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tdxiang at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sarawak tried to force the weather's hand, spending at least 50,000 ringgit per session on cloud seeding operations to encourage rainfall. The results were modest. What finally ended the crisis was what always ends it: the arrival of the northeast monsoon in late October and Nove...

Image: Tdxiang at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0