The study did not determine what sparked the fires but highlighted risks from degraded peatlands, poor fire management on expanding plantations and banks financing deforestation. (EPA Images pic)JAKARTA: Thousands of hectares of land on palm oil and pulpwood concessions run by large listed firms were burnt during Indonesia's worst fire season in years, highlighting the role of deforestation and land clearing, a study showed on Friday.

Indonesia's forest fires caused a spike in respiratory illness at home and triggered air pollution warnings and school closures across the region, with fire emissions surging to three times the seasonal average.

A total of 2.88 million hectares (7.1 million acres) of land were damaged by fire from January to October this year, driven by intense El Niño weather conditions and extreme heat, as well as clearing of forests to make way for industrial-scale palm oil and pulpwood plantations, according to a joint study by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and geomonitoring platform Nusantara Atlas.