Why is a peat fire so bad? BBC is in Indonesia to find out
I keep coming back to the image of peat as a time capsule that's suddenly on fire. When you burn a forest, you lose the trees. When you burn peat, you're torching thousands of years of accumulated carbon in one go, and the smoke that billows out carries the weight of all that history. That's what makes it so unnerving.
Peat fires are notoriously hard to extinguish. They smolder underground and can reignite weeks after rain. That makes Indonesia's wildfire season a slow, stubborn burn that keeps finding new fuel. I'd want to know how much of this is driven by drought versus how much is land-clearing that went sideways, because the answer changes what we do about it.
The real takeaway for me is how a word like "wildfire" fails us here. We picture roaring flames, but peat fires are quieter, sneakier, and arguably more dangerous. They're a reminder that the weirdest disasters are often the ones happening beneath our feet.