Four men have died while fighting wildfires in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park on Indonesia’s Java island, the forestry ministry confirmed on Friday, as the country grapples with a months-long crisis of fires and toxic smoke.
The victims were trapped by flames and dense smoke on Thursday while trying to extinguish fires in the national park in East Java., reports AFP.
National park spokesman Endrip Wahyutama said three of the men died at the scene, while the fourth died later in hospital.
Wahyutama identified two of the victims as national park officers and the other two as security guards who were assisting them.
Two other people, a volunteer firefighter and a security guard from a nearby hotel who had joined the emergency response, suffered serious burns and are receiving medical treatment.
The forestry ministry said the incident served as a stark reminder that extinguishing forest and land fires remains a high-risk operation.
The deaths come amid a sharp rise in satellite-detected hotspots, which indicate areas of unusually high temperatures but do not necessarily correspond to individual fires. By Thursday evening, the national hotspot count had risen to 799, up from 372 a day earlier.
Central Kalimantan, a province on Borneo island, which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei, recorded the highest concentration and largest increase in hotspots.
“Central Kalimantan recorded the largest increase, so field operations are being strengthened,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that southern Sumatra had the second-highest hotspot count.
Officials are particularly concerned about the area surrounding Tanjung Puting National Park, a critical habitat for endangered orangutans. Firefighting efforts, including water-bombing flights and cloud-seeding operations to induce rainfall, have been severely hampered by poor visibility caused by thick smoke.
The ministry reported that several areas across Sumatra and Kalimantan were experiencing “unhealthy to very unhealthy conditions, even locally hazardous” due to haze from the fires. The smoke has turned the skies orange in some regions.
Authorities have advised the public to reduce outdoor activities and wear face masks when outside if air quality deteriorates further.
