Asean climate monitor issues highest alert level over toxic haze

Ongoing fires in Indonesia that have blanketed parts of Southeast Asia with toxic haze have triggered the highest-level alert by the regional bloc’s climate and fire monitor.

“Activation of Alert Level 3 for the Southern Asean region,” the Singapore Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) said on its website, seen on Saturday.

Based near Singapore’s Changi Airport, the ASMC uses a four-tiered alert level system, from zero to three, with the highest triggered if there is a “high risk of severe transboundary haze in the region”.

This included significant and persistent hotspot activities with widespread moderate to dense smoke haze, observed over two or more consecutive days, dry weather persisting and wind continuing to blow haze towards Association of Southeast Asian Nations neighbours.

The ASMC alert was issued on Friday, but similar alerts have already been handed out twice this year – on August 26 and March 27.

‘Sue our government’: growing anger as haze spreads from Indonesia

The months-long spell of haze has been disrupting life in large parts of Southeast Asia, closing schools and spiking respiratory complaints.

On Friday, Singapore said it would issue warnings to seven companies in Indonesia it identified as responsible for fires but warned the worst may yet to come. Singapore has no plantations or forests of its own, but several companies with concessions in Indonesia are reportedly based in the city state.

Four people died in East Java’s Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park fighting the blazes on Thursday, authorities said. Two others suffered serious burns and were receiving further medical treatment.

“This incident serves as a reminder that forest and land fire extinguishing is a high-risk operation,” the forestry department said on Friday, adding that personnel safety remained a primary concern.

The department in the same statement said there was a significant jump in hotspots in several areas in six “priority provinces” where 615 hotspots were detected.

A hotspot is a location where a satellite detects an unusually high temperature, indicating a potential fire or other strong heat source.