Indonesia is stepping up efforts to contain forest and land fires across six priority provinces, deploying cloud-seeding aircraft to induce rain as it works to slow the haze now spreading across the region, officials said.

Dozens of schools were shuttered for a second day yesterday. Indonesia is facing a longer and more severe dry season this year as El Nino intensifies, raising the risk of drought, forest fires and air pollution.

Forestry Ministry data showed that 107,465 hectares of land were hit by fires from January to June, a 110 percent increase compared with the same period in 2023, when El Nino last affected Indonesia.

“We are on alert because the weather conditions really make it possible for these fires to become larger,” chief security minister Djamari Chaniago told reporters on Monday.

He said there were signs that El Nino had already reached its most intense level in Indonesia.

El Nino and the dry season do not themselves cause fires but “act as catalysts” allowing them to spread more widely, Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency chief Suharyanto told Reuters yesterday.

“The main cause is human factors, whether deliberate or accidental,” he said, citing common practices such as the burning of peatland and the use of campfires.

However, Dana Prima Tarigan of Indonesian environmental group WALHI said that rapid deforestation to make way for palm oil plantations and mines has also contributed to the problem, leaving the land dry and more vulnerable to fires.