Climate Adaptation
Southeast Asia Likely Spared Smoke Haze as Rain Damps Fires
- Better rainfall, cloud seeding will cut Indonesia fire numbers
- Hot spots down 80% year-on-year, the lowest since 2013
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Southeast Asia is likely to be spared the choking haze which has blanketed the region in recent years, with a wetter-than-normal dry season in Indonesia expected to curb fire numbers.
Smog blanketed parts of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for months in 2019, with more than 16,000 hot spots -- areas on satellite imagery that show suspected fires -- across Indonesia during the peak in September, according to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. More than 1.6 million hectares of land was burnt in total.