Haze from Indonesia's wildfires pushes Manila's air quality to Acutely Unhealthy
Transboundary haze from wildfires burning across Kalimantan and Sumatra pushed Metro Manila's air quality to Acutely Unhealthy levels between August 30 and September 2, with pollution peaking above four and a half times the WHO guideline. The smoke has also reached Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, and Malaysia's health ministry reported a 259 percent surge in asthma cases in a single week.
A new air quality report from Ateneo's ACRI and the Breathe Metro Manila network found that transboundary haze from wildfires burning across Kalimantan and Sumatra pushed Metro Manila's air quality to Acutely Unhealthy levels between August 30 and September 2, 2026, with pollution peaking above four and a half times the WHO guideline on August 31. Eleven of fifteen monitoring stations hit that same level. The fires have burned more than 202,000 hectares in Indonesia this year, nearly three times the size of Singapore, with West Kalimantan the hardest hit. Indonesia has deployed more than 39,000 personnel to fight the blazes and arrested 72 people suspected of starting them; the forestry minister says it's almost certain most fires were deliberately set for land clearing. The haze has also reached Malaysia, where asthma cases jumped 259 percent in a week, and ASEAN has activated its highest transboundary haze alert. Indonesia's weather agency doesn't expect fire-suppressing rain until November or December.