Wildfire flames and smoke rise above a forest in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park near Mount Bromo in Probolinggo, East Java province. (AFP Photo)
Dozens of Indonesian schools were shuttered for a second day on Aug. 11 against the spreading haze of wildfires plaguing the archipelago at the start of a long and intense dry season worsened by El Nino.
In West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo that Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei, the mayor of Pontianak ordered schools closed due to the smoke wafting over the city from fires elsewhere.
Public records show Pontianak has tens of thousands of public school pupils.
Children will learn from home for as long as air quality remains poor, mayor Edi Rusdi Kamtono said in a statement on Aug. 10, without stating how many schools were affected.
“We have started to feel it, especially at night and in the morning, as haze has already blanketed the city of Pontianak,” he said.
On the island of Java, firefighters battled flames for a ninth day at a national park that has lost 900 hectares to an inferno that broke out on Aug. 3.
The blaze at the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, a major tourist attraction closed to visitors since Aug. 8, is one of several wildfires that have drawn in nearly 50,000 firefighters countrywide.
More than 107,000 hectares of land have burnt countrywide so far this year.
Authorities insist that food stocks remain adequate.
