Australian firefighting aircraft are due to join Indonesia’s response to forest and land fires in East Kalimantan, with a seven-day operation planned to begin on 6 November.
Indonesia’s disaster management agency said the assistance includes a C-130 Hercules air tanker and a Cessna Citation guidance aircraft from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. The aircraft were presented at Halim Perdanakusuma airport in Jakarta on 5 November, ahead of the planned deployment to the province on the island of Borneo.
Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia, Roderick Brazier, said the tanker could drop up to 15,000 litres of water on each flight. Up to six flights a day were envisaged, although that is an estimate of capacity, not a record of missions completed.
The operation is scheduled to run from 6 to 12 November. Twenty aviation specialists are accompanying the assistance, including aircrew, technical and medical personnel. Indonesia’s disaster agency said pilots, crew members and paramedics would support the operation.
Aircraft will support existing response
The Australian aircraft are intended to reinforce an Indonesian effort that already combines ground firefighting, water drops from the air and weather-modification operations. The Cessna is a lead aircraft; the C-130 is the large tanker assigned to drop water.
Kristomei Sianturi, head of Indonesia’s disaster agency, said the choice of East Kalimantan followed coordination and a joint technical assessment by the two countries. He said the province remained in need of support and was second to Central Kalimantan in the agency’s assessment of where help was needed.
The planned deployment is one contribution to a much wider response. In a briefing on 28 October, the agency said 51,057 ground personnel were spread across four priority provinces: Central, West and South Kalimantan, and South Sumatra. It also reported an air fleet of 61 aircraft, including 37 water-bombing helicopters. Those figures were a snapshot of the response at that date, not a current count of crews or aircraft working in East Kalimantan.
The agency has also urged people to stop clearing land by burning. Its warning was part of a broader appeal to prevent further fires and smoke; it did not establish who started any particular blaze.
Smoke and health pressures
Months of fires have affected parts of Sumatra, Borneo and Papua. Earlier in the season, smoke also reached neighbouring countries including Singapore and Malaysia.
Indonesia’s health ministry reported a cumulative 401,586 cases of acute respiratory infection across seven provinces by 2 November. A ministry spokesperson said 91,913 of the recorded cases involved children aged five or under. These are cases reported in affected areas; the total does not establish that smoke caused each individual illness.
Health authorities have prepared services for people affected by haze. On 22 October, the disaster agency said 1,691 community health centres and 360 referral hospitals had been readied, alongside oxygen facilities established by local governments. The agency advised people to monitor air quality and seek medical care if breathlessness or coughing worsened.
Some fires in Indonesian Borneo have burned in peatland, where material can smoulder below the surface and be difficult to extinguish. The government’s response has included ground teams as well as aircraft, rather than relying on water drops alone.
Brazier said the assistance followed discussions between the two governments. He also recalled Indonesian help during Australia’s 2020 bushfires. For the latest operation, the timetable and aircraft capacities set out by officials remain plans and estimates; the agencies have not yet reported the results of the seven-day deployment.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
