Haze Crisis Chokes 3 Nations as El Niño Fuels Fires

Thirteen days in a row. Singapore has breathed air rated unhealthy for that long, its longest continuous stretch since the 2015 haze crisis. Smoke drifting over Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines shows no sign of lifting soon.

Ben Churchill, director of the World Meteorological Organization's regional office for Asia and the Pacific, says Southeast Asia is experiencing one of its worst transboundary haze episodes, driven by fires in Indonesia. Speaking to The Straits Times at the WMO regional office in Tai Seng, he warned the crisis could last weeks or even months, until winds change and rain drenches the fires.

“We’re seeing more and more unhealthy days and hours creeping in. My expectation is that this will continue,” Churchill said.

A Perfect Storm of Heat, Drought and Fire

The ongoing El Niño is on track to be the strongest ever observed, Churchill said. It brings drier, hotter weather to the equatorial ASEAN region, arriving alongside the dry season. Churchill called the combination “the perfect storm” for fires to persist and spread. Fires break out when people clear land through traditional slash-and-burn practices, he said.

The scale is striking. In the seven days from Oct. 8, about half of the world’s smoke haze came from Indonesia, Churchill said, citing data from the European Union’s Copernicus programme’s Fire Emissions Watch service.

Human-driven climate change is making El Niño events and severe haze episodes more frequent and intense, he said. The problem isn’t confined to one country. “We’re looking at Indonesia right now, of course, but this could have happened anywhere to anyone at any time,” Churchill said, pointing to similar agricultural practices elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Official Response and the Wait for Relief

Singapore’s Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said at a press conference on Oct. 16 that the country should prepare for prolonged haze and that air quality could breach hazardous levels. Conditions might improve only when winds become lighter and more variable, a change expected in three to four weeks. A fuller reprieve could come closer to the end of the year, she said, when winds shift from their current southerly direction and blow from the north, pushing the haze away.

Fu said she had contacted her Indonesian counterpart, Environment Minister Jumhur Hidayat, to offer civilian assistance for firefighting and cloud seeding.

Monsoon rains are the only relief beyond active firefighting, Churchill said. The wet phase of the north-east monsoon brings higher rainfall to Southeast Asia around December. But no one knows the timing for sure: research shows strong El Niño conditions usually disrupt those seasonal shifts. The Straits Times reported on Oct. 2 that El Niño would likely delay the dry season’s retreat, and Singapore’s weatherman said the transition could happen in late October or November. An updated forecast is due at the ASEAN Climate Outlook Forum in late October.

The Case for Pooling Resources

Churchill urged ASEAN to treat the haze as a shared responsibility. He proposed that member states pool firefighting resources, invest in equipment they could share, exchange technical expertise and make sure neighbouring countries’ crews could deploy quickly. He pointed to Australia’s reciprocal disaster-management arrangements with New Zealand, the United States and Canada, which allow support personnel and equipment to deploy and integrate quickly.

“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 isn’t always enough.”

He also called for tighter rules and better education. “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,” he said.

The WMO warned in June that a strong El Niño would develop in 2026. Early notice of such events needs to reach every level of society, Churchill said, from policymakers planning infrastructure to the agricultural sector. “Everyone has a say, and everyone has the power to do things differently in future, so they don’t happen again.”

Why This Matters: Haze doesn’t respect borders, and neither do its costs. Millions of people across three countries are breathing air rated unhealthy, while Singapore’s officials openly prepare for hazardous levels. The WMO’s warning in June gave governments months of lead time, yet the region is waiting on the weather for relief again instead of relying on shared, funded response capacity. Churchill’s call for pooled equipment, rapid cross-border deployment and tighter land regulation points to a collective-action problem no single government can solve alone. It also raises a question of accountability: he says the companies and farmers responsible for the fires need regulation and education, not just the hope of rain. With El Niño and warming making these episodes more frequent and intense, the burden of dirty air will keep falling on the public until governments treat prevention as a shared public duty.