Indonesia's wildfire haze spreads across Southeast Asia, hospitalizing thousands

Each dry season, the ancient peatlands of Sumatra and Kalimantan are set alight by human hands seeking the cheapest path to cleared land, and the consequences ripple outward far beyond any single field or plantation. This year, amplified by a super El Niño, the fires have grown into a regional crisis: over 50,000 people hospitalized in Indonesia, toxic haze drifting into Malaysia and the Philippines, and millions breathing air that was never meant to sustain them. It is a story as old as short-term economics meeting long-term consequence — a reminder that fire, once released into a drying worl