Thick Toxic Smoke Engulfs Borneo Towns, Hospitals Report Surge, Residents Ordered To Evacuate

Palangka Raya, Indonesia— Smoke rolled in before dawn on October 30, 2026, thick enough to erase the Kahayan River from view. Air monitors hit 700 on the index. By 9 a.m. clinics were logging a steady line of children and elderly gasping for air.

The fires are not new. They never are. Peatlands in Pulang Pisau and Kapuas that were drained years ago for plantations caught again this week after weeks of dry heat. Satellite hotspots jumped from 180 to over 400 in 48 hours. Ground crews could not reach most of them.

Hospitals are feeling it first. “We ran out of oxygen tubes in the pediatric ward by noon,” a doctor at Doris Sylvanus Hospital said. “People come in with eyes swollen shut. They cannot speak without coughing.” Official counts put respiratory complaints at 3,200 in three days. Nurses expect double.

Schools across the city shut. So did the airport. Visibility dropped to 150 meters on the Palangka Raya-Banjarmasin road. Police stopped trucks. A ferry operator said he navigated by sound.

This is where the institutional friction starts. The provincial disaster agency says water-bombing helicopters are on standby. The national agency says two are grounded for maintenance. Local firefighters say canals built to re-wet the peat are dry again. No one agrees who should pay to pump them.

The smoke is not just wood. Peat burns slow and deep. It throws fine particles that stay in lungs. A public health officer in Palangka Raya said clinics handed out 12,000 masks in one morning, mostly cheap cloth that does little. N95 supplies are gone.

In the villages, people do not wait for orders. In Kalampangan, farmers dragged hoses to the edge of their fields. One man said his family slept in the mosque because it had an air purifier donated by a mining company. The fire was 200 meters behind his house.

For now the wind is not helping. Forecasts show the smog holding over the south for at least two more days. Officials talk about evacuating three sub-districts if the index stays above 500.

Emergency posts are open. Oxygen is short. The fires are still burning.