Indonesia experiences fires every dry season, but this year's blazes have been particularly severe, making hundreds of thousands of people ill. (EPA Images pic)SURABAYA: Indonesian schoolchildren prayed for rain on Thursday as another firefighter lost his life battling drought-fuelled blazes consuming forests and peatlands and blanketing parts of Southeast Asia in a sickening haze.
Wildfires have burnt more than 1.9 million hectares in the nine months to September, according to deforestation monitor Nusantara Atlas – a figure the government has not confirmed or denied.
The resulting haze has sickened hundreds of thousands in Indonesia and reached as far as Malaysia, Singapore and East Timor.
In East Java, where fires have ravaged several regencies and conservation areas including Mount Bromo and the Baluran National Park, the governor urged communities to come together to "pray for rain".
