JAKARTA, Nov 11 — Fires in Indonesia driven partly by a strong El Nino have burned through 2.88 million hectares (7.1 million acres) so far in 2026, a monitor analysing satellite imagery told AFP today.
The burned area figure — 18 times the size of London — has increased nearly a million hectares since deforestation monitoring site Nusantara Atlas’s last update in September.
Indonesia’s government has not provided official figures for areas burned since announcing 202,000 hectares had been razed by the end of July.
The burning detected in analysis through the end of October is a conservative estimate, warned Nusantara Atlas founder David Gaveau, in part because smoke has obscured satellite images.
