Indonesia is working hard to tackle severe forest fires that are affecting large parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but the task remains difficult, according to government officials. Since last month, the government has deployed 64 aircraft and 54,000 personnel to these regions in an effort to contain the blazes. The fires have created thick, toxic haze that has spread beyond Indonesia, affecting neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore. Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said that efforts are being made both from the air and on the ground to put out the fires, reduce the impact of the smoke, and protect public health. However, the vast area affected and the challenging terrain—especially peatlands—make firefighting efforts more complicated. Peatlands are wetlands that store large amounts of carbon, and when they catch fire, they burn slowly and deeply, making them extremely difficult to extinguish. Daniel Sinyor, a spokesman for the disaster mitigation agency in West Kalimantan, explained that the varying depth of the fires in peat soils and the limited availability of water sources are major obstacles. In response to the ongoing crisis, indigenous communities and civil society groups in West Kalimantan have taken legal action, filing a class-action lawsuit against the government, including the president and the governor, accusing them of failing to prevent the fires. The group’s lawyer, Glorio Sanen, claimed that the recurring nature of the disaster indicates the defendants were aware of the risks and did not take adequate measures to prevent them. To help combat the fires, around 350 members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces have arrived in West Kalimantan to assist with firefighting efforts. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has also expressed openness to receiving help from Malaysia. This year’s fires are more severe than in previous years, coinciding with what is expected to be the strongest El Niño weather pattern in four decades. El Niño typically brings prolonged dry conditions, increasing the risk of fires. Experts also point to long-term issues such as climate change, decades of deforestation, and the use of slash-and-burn techniques for land clearing as contributing factors. According to the Indonesian government, more than 202,000 hectares of land were burned between January and July. However, the Nusantara Atlas project, an independent environmental monitoring initiative, estimated the burned area to be nearly 300,000 hectares during the same period. When including August, the total affected area is estimated to be nearly 896,000 hectares. These figures highlight the massive scale of the environmental damage caused by the ongoing fires.