The Asian Forest Fires of 1997-1998
From October through November 1997, fires in Indonesia and the resulting haze made front-page news around the world as the haze spread as far the Philippines to the north, Sri Lanka to the west, and northern Australia to the south. As the Southeast Asian "tiger" economies collapsed, fires burned thousands of squares miles of rainforest, plantations, conversion forest, and scrubland in Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Bali, Lombock, and Sarawak, Malaysia. Though official government estimates peg the area affected at 1.85 million acres (750,000 ha), environmental organizations like the national environmental group WAHLI (the Indonesian Forum for Environment) say at least 4.2 million acres (1,714,000 ha) went up in smoke By mid-1998 the estimate had climbed beyond 5 million ha (12.4 million acres). Estimates for the area burned in East Kalimantan alone in 1998 range from 445,000 acres (180,280 ha) to 700,000 acres (284,000 ha). Regardless of the extent of area burned, the fires caused serious regional health problems and economic loss, and created an ecological nightmare.