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Garry Lotulung

Irma smells the fire before she sees it: a column of thick, yellow-tinged smoke rising above the tree line near her small wooden home.
She pulls on heavy rubber boots, checks her equipment and drives straight into the impenetrable smog emanating from wildfires devouring the peatland and ancient forests of Borneo.
“I am terrified that the flames will reach residential areas. It is extremely dangerous,” the 39-year-old mother told This Week in Asia, moments before disappearing into the murk that has settled over the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan.
Irma, who like many Indonesians only goes by one name, is one of roughly 150 Muslim women who make up Power of Mama, an all-female volunteer firefighting unit that heads out every day during the dry season to battle blazes smouldering deep beneath the island’s peatlands.
They fight fires lit, deliberately or otherwise, by the agricultural burning of poor farming communities clearing land the cheapest way they know how. This year, those fires arrived earlier and burned harder than most can remember, fuelled climate anomalies and drought conditions.

“We are the ones who feel its effects most,” said Irma, who is the group’s coordinator, explaining that it was women who were left to care for housebound children through increasingly long stretches of the year.
“The haze causes the airports and schools to close, and it makes our community ill. I thought I had to do something about it.”
Indonesia has an estimated 206,000 square km (79,500 square miles) of tropical peatland, making up about 10.8 per cent of its total land area and the most carbon-dense store of its kind anywhere on Earth.
When the peatlands burn, they release thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the air, fuelling a vicious cycle that drives global warming and worsens each year’s drought.
Smog from the wildfires then drifts over Singapore, Malaysia and further afield – poisoning the air and damaging lungs as it does so.
Peatlands are normally waterlogged, but most of Borneo has not seen heavy rain since late June.

Decades of deforestation and drainage for palm oil plantations and other intensive agriculture have helped create a wildlife crisis that each year consumes vast tracts of the country, destroying the last natural habitat of some of the world’s rarest species, from orangutans and hornbills to pangolins.
From her village in Ketapang regency, Irma has witnessed the damage first-hand.
“We used to see wild boars, deer, muntjacs and even sun bears; we had hornbills, but now it seems as if they have disappeared,” she said.
Authorities say more than 202,000 hectares (780 square miles) of Indonesia burned between January and July – an area nearly twice the size of Hong Kong.
The Sipongi monitoring website of Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry had recorded 8,638 hotspots across Kalimantan by the end of August. Ketapang, where Irma lives, accounted for about one in five of those fires, placing her volunteer group right on the front line.

Hard hats and hosepipes
Wearing hard hats or motorcycle helmets over their jilbabs, the Power of Mama volunteers haul long hosepipes into singed forest and fields, their bright red uniforms the only splash of colour against the scorched earth.
Most wear thin surgical masks or cloth coverings for protection while they carry out their gruelling, unpaid work.
The small creeks and rivers that once served as natural firebreaks had been drying up since June, Irma said – forcing the volunteer firefighters to linger at the edge of forests or plantations as they try to douse the flames wherever they can.
The group was formed in 2022 by Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI), the local affiliate of global non-profit International Animal Rescue. Translating to the Indonesian Nature Rehabilitation Initiatives Foundation, YIARI operates with a mandate that extends well beyond firefighting.
“This isn’t just about putting out fires,” YIARI founder and CEO Karmele Llano Sanchez said. “It’s about seeing these women become more confident and taking their rightful, powerful role in society.”
Members are trained to fly surveillance drones and lead community outreach as well as fight the fires, which can be very difficult to put out.
“You can’t see the flames,” Sanchez explained. “But the burning goes on, and often a light breeze is sufficient to rekindle the fire.”

Back on patrol, Suriati, 32, and Ratinah, 56, both of whom also go by a single name, pick their way along a narrow track towards the edge of the forest.
“We often fall off our motorbikes,” Ratinah said. “Particularly during the rainy season when it’s slippery and muddy.”
Fire is not the only obstacle. In a conservative, male-dominated society, the women’s authority is regularly tested by the neighbours they are trying to protect.
“Sometimes they won’t accept it,” said Suriati, a housewife who runs a small grocery stall alongside her firefighting duties. “They feel that we are being patronising. They say ‘what do housewives know’? With the older people in particular, we cannot simply forbid them … we have to treat them gently.”
When the rains finally do arrive, the volunteers will turn to advising farmers on controlled burning and nitrogen-restoring alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture, rehabilitating degraded mangroves and teaching schoolchildren about how to steward the land their parents have been setting alight.

The night shift
For Ely Marlina, 46, the fires are personal. She joined the volunteers after the 2019 fire season, when Ketapang regency alone logged more than 1,000 hotspots and doctors reported an alarming spike in chronic breathing conditions among children.
By day, Ely teaches at a junior high school. By night, she fights fires.
It was already dark when word reached her of a recent blaze less than 3km (1.86 miles) from her home in Sungai Awan Kiri village, West Kalimantan.
“Some of the residents’ houses were about 100 metres away and the distance to the densely populated residential area was only about 200 or 300 metres,” she recalled.
At the scene, she climbed onto a fire truck to rig water pumps, hosepipes and portable tanks, then joined the other members of her team hauling the equipment towards the flames.
“The area was peatland,” the 46-year-old said. “The ground was very dangerous. My leg even slipped and sank half a metre into the peat.”
Hours later, the fire was finally extinguished – a small victory for Ely and her exhausted team, in a battle that begins again with every sunrise.
“Like it or not we have to stay on guard during the dry season,” she said. “The people depend on us.”


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When Indonesia burns, these women run towards the fire

A member of the Power of Mama on night fire patrol at a palm oil plantation in West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, last month. Photo: Garry Lotulung

Irma, a member of the Power of Mama team that heads out every day during the dry season to battle blazes in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan. Photo: Garry Lotulung

Smog from massive forest and land fires blankets a rural area in Tanjungpura village, Ketapang regency, Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province, on August 18. Photo: Garry Lotulung

A Power of Mama volunteer carries a hosepipe to extinguish flames in Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, on August 20. Photo: Garry Lotulung

 Suriati (left) and Ratinah, members of the Power of Mama team, rest after conducting a patrol in Sungai Putri village on August 17. Photo: Garry Lotulung

Ely Marlina carries a hosepipe to extinguish fires at night in Sungai Awan Kiri village, Indonesia, on August 17. Photo: Garry Lotulung

Irma (left), a member of the Power of Mama team, extinguishes a fire on burned peatland and forest on August 20. Photo: Garry Lotulung

Ely Marlina, a member of the Power of Mama team, sprays water on a peatland fire in Sungai Awan Kiri village on August 17. Photo: Garry Lotulung

Irma (left) and other members of the Power of Mama team patrol the forest on foot to search for undetected fires in Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, on August 20. Photo: Garry Lotulung

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Firefighters spray water on a wildfire in South Sumatra, Indonesia, on September 5. Photo: EPA

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Dock workers walk amid thick haze from forest fires at Kijing Port in Mempawah, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, on Thursday. Photo: AP

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A firefighter sprays water to extinguish a wildfire in East Kalimantan province, Indonesia, in September. Photo: Reuters

A firefighter sprays water on a wildfire in South Sumatra, Indonesia, on Saturday. Photo: EPA

A helicopter drops water on a wildfire burning through a peatland in Jambi province, Indonesia in August. Photo: AP

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Satellite data from Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System showed dense concentrations of heat signatures in West Kalimantan on Sunday. Image: Handout

A farmer in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province sprays water in an attempt to extinguish wildfires that are burning his palm oil plantation on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

Burnt trees lie on the ground at a peatland area affected by wildfires in Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

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A helicopter drops water to extinguish a wildfire burning through peatland in Jambi province, Indonesia, on Monday. Photo: BPBD Jambi/AP

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A haze-shrouded road in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, on Thursday. Smoke from widespread forest and land fires has significantly reduced visibility and degraded air quality across the province. Photo: AFP

This Week in Asia

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Meet the all-female volunteer brigade risking their lungs and lives to fight Indonesia’s devastating wildfires


Meet the all-female volunteer brigade risking their lungs and lives to fight Indonesia’s devastating wildfires.


Environment

When Indonesia burns, these women run towards the fire

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Meet the all-female volunteer brigade risking their lungs and lives to fight Indonesia’s devastating wildfires

Meet the all-female volunteer brigade risking their lungs and lives to fight Indonesia’s devastating wildfires