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Indonesia’s seasonal fires intensify as boreal wildfire smoke impacts Northern Hemisphere, Arctic – EnviroNews
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There has been a significant wildfire activity across North America and northern Eurasia, sending large columns of smoke into the Arctic, as well as Southeast Asia and Europe since the start of August. There is also an intense start to Indonesia’s seasonal wildfires, expected to be enhanced by El Niño.
Late July and the first weeks of August saw intense seasonal fires begin in Indonesia. Vegetation fires are common during Indonesia’s dry season between the end of July and the end of October, and 2026 is projected to be particularly intense year, as to be expected with a strong positive El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the equatorial Pacific.
Initial fires were mainly over the Island of Borneo, and across the Indonesian provinces of West and Central Kalimantan, with smoke pollution leading to school closures and more regional impacts including both Singapore and Malaysia. Indonesian authorities are using cloud seeding – spraying chemicals such as iodide and salt into clouds – to induce rain and help mitigate air pollution from fires. The region’s vast peatlands make fire management exceptionally difficult once the fires begin as they can potentially burn underground and at lower temperatures.
Wildfires continue across the Northern Hemisphere
Sustained dry conditions and heatwaves across Europe have favoured an extreme fire risk for large parts of the continent up to mid-August. Belgium had its largest wildfire since satellite measurements began burning 3,000 hectares during the course of several days from August 14 with the smoke impacts causing the German border city of Monschau to issue evacuation orders.
The scale of the fires in northwestern Europe was tamed through favourable meteorological conditions, including some precipitation, which helped fight flames and reduce fire risks for the region in recent days. Spain, France, Greece, the Balkans and parts of Germany remained heavily impacted by significant fire activity into the second half of August, including a large fire in the French region of Landes and major fire activity in Spanish regions of Huelva and Huesca.
Particularly intense fire activity has been observed in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, British Columbia and Canada’s Northwest Territories, where fires have continued to burn at some of the highest rates seen in recent decades. In the United States, wildfires in July and August saw the highest year-to-date emissions for Washington and Oregon, while Utah saw its highest fire emissions since at least 2003, driven by wildfires in June, July and August. The GFAS dataset, produced by Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), places 2026 slightly above average for the time of year for the United States as a whole.
Mark Parrington, a Senior Scientist at ECMWF and working for CAMS, said: “Based on our years of monitoring during the summer months, we expect to see continuation of wildfire emissions around the Northern Hemisphere through to the end of August. However, for some regions experiencing large-scale and persistent fires, such as the Siberian Arctic, the peak emissions have been occurring slightly later than usual and at a time where the number of fires might be expected to decrease. For Indonesia, seasonal fire emissions and regional haze are already enhanced, consistent with previous El Niño years, and we will be monitoring the situation very closely to understand how the fires and air quality impacts are changing.”
Extreme wildfires impact northern regions of Russia
In northern Russia, wildfires in Yamal-Nenets, Krasnoyarsk and parts of Sakha Republic have generated substantial emissions, with Yamal-Nenets recording its highest daily emissions on record during August. Despite this activity, and while these northern regions experienced some of their highest fire emissions since 2003, Russia as a whole has experienced below average emissions for this time of the year, and far below the most catastrophic seasons, such as 2012 and 2021.
Smoke from both the North American and Russian fires has been transported around large parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including across the Arctic. CAMS monitoring indicates that fire emissions at high northern latitudes and within the Arctic Circle are currently above average, making 2026 one of the most active recent years for Arctic wildfire emissions.
While emissions have risen sharply in several fire-effected regions in recent weeks, lower than average emissions from seasonal biomass burning across tropical Africa mean that the year-to-date global total is still currently at lowest values in the 24 years of the Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) dataset. The GFAS dataset, and others, indicate that reduced seasonal fires in tropical Africa is a major contributing factor to the general decrease in year-to-date global emissions.
CAMS uses its Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) to provide near real-time monitoring of wildfire emissions worldwide. GFAS uses satellite observations of Fire Radiative Power to estimate emissions from wildfire and biomass burning and feeds these emissions into ECMWF atmospheric forecasts.
This enables CAMS to track the transport of smoke and forecast air quality impacts up to five days in advance. The freely available data supports researchers, policymakers, emergency responders and the public in understanding and responding to wildfire events around the world.
