Meet the women on the frontline of Indonesia’s forest fires

As long as Jane Yolanda can remember, there have been periods where suffocating smog has enveloped her home of Ketapang in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The haze can get so thick that visibility goes down to one or two meters. It creeps under doors, around windows and through any efforts to seal homes.

In 2015, the haze was especially bad. The 19 year-old remembers it vividly because the unimaginable happened — her friend passed away. “He was a cheerful person, how could he have died so suddenly?” she says.

The death of her friend from an acute respiratory tract infection had a profound impact on Jane, and she decided to volunteer with Greenpeace’s Fire Prevention team.

Indonesia’s annual forest fires are a human-made crisis, not a natural one.

Left in its natural waterlogged condition, peatland rarely burns. Untouched tropical rainforest is similarly fire-resistant.

When peatlands are cleared and drained for plantations, they degrade and the carbon they store is released into the atmosphere as CO2 emissions. If peat soil catches fire, it can smoulder away below the surface which is difficult to extinguish.

As long as industrial agriculture continues to clear forests and drain wet, carbon-rich peatlands, it’s ordinary Indonesians that will have to live with the consequences. People like volunteer Margareta Ratih, who lives in a village close to the fire sites.

The work is hard and the gear is heavy. The Forest Fire Prevention team trudge through deep peatland wearing hazmat suits, helmets, goggles and bladder bags and shoes that weigh more than 1kg.

Everyone volunteering has their own reason for doing so — their own story as to how the fires impact their lives or that of their families.

Sola Gratia Sihaloho, 20, watched a friend fall victim to the damaging effects of the haze in 2015. “She was vomiting blood and had to be admitted to the hospital,” says Sola. Luckily her friend survived.

This year, the team identified hotspots around the Sungai Puteri landscape in Ketapang, Indonesian Borneo — an area that was badly affected by the fires in 2015 because of detrimental practises by the palm oil, paper and logging industries.

The landscape hosts not only deep peatlands but also precious remaining habitat for Borneo’s orangutans.

The volunteers work closely with government firefighters and other community members as they fight not only to protect native wildlife, but also their homes and even the air they breathe.

“My daughter Asya was only three months old when the haze reached its peak back in 2015,” says Anchor, one of the team’s Operation Incident Commanders (OICs).

He and his family had to flee their home. Recently married, he now works battling the hotspots simply because he wants to provide healthy air for Asya and his family.

The team undergoes training but it can’t prepare them for everything. “I was afraid,” says Iwan, another Operation Incident Commander (OIC) on the team. Peatland fire can be deeply buried, which is a scary prospect when you’re having to wade through it.

But for the OIC’s, supporting the other volunteers — and the team’s bravery — makes it worth it.

“We have to do something,” says Iwan, “Whatever it is. All of us can do something to prevent and put out fires.”

Let’s end the haze crisis and commit to full protection for our forests and peatlands.

Juliet Perry is a Content Editor for the Communications Hub at Greenpeace East Asia.