- One of the worst transboundary haze episodes has hit Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, caused by fires in Indonesia, said Ben Churchill, director of the WMO regional office for Asia and the Pacific.
- He warned the haze could last weeks or months, fuelled by a strong El Nino that have made fires harder to put out.
- He called for ASEAN to share firefighting resources, improve warnings and change land practices.
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SINGAPORE – South-east Asia is in the grips of one of the worst transboundary haze episodes caused by the fires in Indonesia, a director at the UN’s weather and climate agency said on Oct 16.
The crisis could drag on for weeks, even months, until the winds change and rain drenches the fires there, said Ben Churchill, director of the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) regional office for Asia and the Pacific.
Speaking to The Straits Times in an interview at the WMO regional office in Tai Seng, Churchill said the ongoing El Nino event is on track to be the strongest one ever observed.
The onset of this weather phenomenon – which brings drier, hotter weather to the equatorial ASEAN region – has coincided with the region’s dry season.
This has created “the perfect storm” for fires to persist and spread, Churchill said. When land is cleared using traditional slash-and-burn practices, wildfires break out.
He added: “We’re seeing more and more unhealthy days and hours creeping in. My expectation is that this will continue.”
Singapore has so far had 13 consecutive days of unhealthy Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) readings, the longest continuous stretch the country has had to endure since the 2015 haze crisis. A day is considered to have unhealthy air quality when the PSI reading at any point in the day exceeds 100 in any part of Singapore.
Churchill’s comments come as Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu warned at a press conference on Oct 16 that Singapore needed to brace itself for prolonged hazy conditions, and that air quality here could even breach hazardous levels.
She said that the situation might improve only when the winds become lighter and more variable in direction. But that is expected to happen only in three to four weeks’ time.
Reprieve might come closer to the end of the year, she said, when winds start to blow from the north instead of from the current southerly direction, as this will push haze away from the Republic.
Churchill said about half of the world’s smoke haze had originated in Indonesia over the seven days from Oct 8. He cited data from the Fire Emissions Watch service run by the European Union’s Copernicus programme that observes the Earth using satellite data and other sources.
Churchill said regional cooperation on early warnings and forecasts would help people better protect themselves.
Countries in the region should also work together to develop measures to tackle the fires, and prevent future episodes from reaching such extreme levels.
He proposed that ASEAN pool its firefighting resources.
This would involve investing in equipment that can be shared across member states, exchanging technical expertise, and ensuring firefighting crew from neighbouring countries can be deployed rapidly if needed.
Fu said at the Oct 16 press conference that she had communicated with her Indonesian counterpart, Environment Minister Jumhur Hidayat, to offer civilian assistance to support firefighting efforts as well as cloud seeding.
“We’re looking at Indonesia right now, of course, but this could have happened anywhere to anyone at any time, based on the preconditions that we were seeing with global warming, as well as the compounding effect of El Nino,” he said, noting similar agricultural practices in other South-east Asian countries.
Churchill, who has helped coordinate efforts to tackle wildfires in Australia, cited the approach Down Under, where reciprocal arrangements to manage such disasters exist with New Zealand, the US and Canada.
Such arrangements ensure that support personnel and equipment can be deployed and integrated immediately to hit the ground running, combining resources as swiftly as possible to extinguish the flames, he said.
Beyond active firefighting, only the arrival of the monsoon rains later in the year will douse the fires, Churchill noted.
“Ideally, we continue to expect that Indonesia and, with the help of other international support, that they continue to do their very best,” he said. “But the very best is not always enough. So yes, this is what we’re hoping for with the monsoon, and the monsoon does bring rain.”
The wet phase of the north-east monsoon brings higher rainfall to South-east Asia around December.
However, Churchill said that uncertainty remains over when the seasonal transition will occur, as research has shown that strong El Nino conditions usually disrupt these shifts.
ST had on Oct 2 reported that the ongoing El Nino event will likely delay the retreat of the dry season. Singapore’s weatherman had said that this transition could take place in late October or November.
“It might be a little bit variable, but it will come,” Churchill said, adding that an updated forecast will be presented at the ASEAN Climate Outlook Forum in late October.
Churchill said that the WMO had in June sounded warnings that a strong El Nino would set in in 2026.
He said it was important that such early notice of impending weather events like El Nino reaches every layer of society, from policymakers shaping infrastructure and planning to the agricultural sector.
“Everybody can take action at some level or other, whether it’s political level, whether it’s community level, whether it’s individual farmers or even individuals themselves,” he said. “Everyone has a say, and everyone has the power to do things differently in future, so they don’t happen again.”
Such coordination is increasingly urgent as human-driven climate change raises global temperatures, making both El Nino events and severe transboundary haze episodes more frequent and intense.
He said: “‘I think if we nip it at the bud, we change our practices and do our very best... collectively to change our land practices, to tighten up the regulations and to educate the farmers and the companies that are responsible for the fires, I think we can go a long way to ensuring and safeguarding safety, security, and prosperity for the ASEAN community.”