Violent forest fires cause toxic smoke

Indonesian police said they have arrested 230 people on suspicion of starting some of the fires which have spread health-damaging haze across a large part of southeast Asia. At the origin of fires, they are often fires lit illegally to clear deforested land or for slash-and-burn crops. 
Nearly 9,000 firefighters and soldiers are fighting tirelessly against the flames in Indonesia in an attempt to extinguish forest fires raging on Sumatra Island, as in Borneo, and release a vast cloud of toxic smoke that has seriously deteriorated air quality and disrupts air links. Fires burning since September have destroyed over 800,000 hectares of rainforest. These events occurred during the September ego and the city acted around September 19, 2019.

The hardest fires to extinguish are those in areas of dry peatlands, which burn in depth, and emit a large amount of smoke. Weirdly, the toxic smoke that spreads over the city has taken on a red color, which worries the population even more.
The gigantic conflagrations are causing respiratory problems and there are numerous reports of deaths, including at least six farmers and two children. There are also more than 150,000 people who have had to be treated for acute respiratory infections in recent months, the Indonesian health authorities said the cloud of smoke that spreads across a vast region has also sparked diplomatic tensions with neighbouring countries, Malaysia and Singapore because air pollution has reached hazardous levels in  Singapore, where smoke has shrouded the city state.

Because of this toxic smoke there have been many school closures. In addition, the inhabitants of Pekanbaru, capital of the Riau province, in the centre of Sumatra, are desperately waiting for the beginning of the rainy season, which usually begins in October, so that it extinguishes once and for all the fires and drives out the cloud of smoke that smothers them.

Walid

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