Parched Peat and Persistent Flames: Inside Jambi’s Ongoing Battle Against Recurring Forest Fires

Main Facts

The ongoing ecological crisis in Jambi Province, Indonesia, has reached a critical juncture. As of September 3, 2026, spatial monitoring data from conservation NGO KKI Warsi revealed that the cumulative area impacted by forest and land fires (karhutla) across the province has surpassed 10,000 hectares. This alarming figure underscores a systemic vulnerability embedded within the region’s expansive tropical peatland ecosystems.

The epicenter of this latest environmental disaster is Desa Persiapan Air Merah, located in the Sungai Gelam district of Muaro Jambi Regency. What began as a seemingly innocuous column of thin smoke rising behind a local betula (areca nut) plantation quickly escalated into a catastrophic underground and surface fire. Fueled by dry peat, severe winds, and a lack of accessible firefighting water due to dried-out agricultural canals, the fire ravaged more than 130 hectares over a front stretching greater than one kilometer.

Containing the disaster required an unprecedented mobilization of resources. Approximately 300 ground personnel—comprising local community members, firefighters, military, and disaster management agencies—alongside three water-bombing helicopters, fought relentlessly for ten days before the fire was fully extinguished.

However, the catastrophe at Air Merah is not an isolated incident. It is part of a recurring, decades-long cycle of environmental degradation. The Sungai Gelam area has become a grim symbol of chronic peatland vulnerability, having suffered severe fires in 2015, 2019, 2023, 2024, and now 2026. Experts warn that unless structural approaches to land management, hydrological restoration, and community-based early warning systems are prioritized, Jambi’s peatlands will remain a ticking time bomb poised to unleash massive carbon emissions and socioeconomic devastation with every dry season.

Chronology of a Disaster: The Ten-Day Battle at Air Merah

The escalation of the disaster in Desa Persiapan Air Merah highlights the speed at which degraded tropical peat can transform from a smoldering spark into an unstoppable inferno.

Phase 1: The Igniting Spark

The disaster commenced with an inconspicuous trace of thin white smoke drifting upward from behind a local community pinang (areca palm) garden. In a normal, hydrated landscape, such occurrences are quickly investigated and quenched. However, following months of below-average rainfall, the landscape was primed for combustion. Within mere hours, the subterranean peat—comprising layers of compressed, partially decayed organic matter accumulated over millennia—caught fire. Because peat fires burn beneath the surface, they are notoriously difficult to detect and suppress in their early stages.

Phase 2: The Spread and Water Scarcity

As the subterranean fire burned laterally, it broke through the surface, creating rapid-fire fronts driven by afternoon breezes. Local residents immediately mobilized with basic tools, attempting to drench the flames. Yet, their efforts were severely hampered by infrastructural failures: the local drainage and irrigation canals, engineered years earlier to drain the land for agricultural expansion, had completely dried up. Without a reliable water source nearby, the community watched helplessly as the fire marched over a kilometer across the landscape, consuming over 130 hectares of land within the Air Merah Community Forest (Hutan Kemasyarakatan/HKm) concession.

Phase 3: The Massive Mobilization and Extinguishing

Recognizing the threat of an uncontainable peat fire, emergency response networks escalated the alert level. A coalition of roughly 300 ground personnel was deployed to carve firebreaks, saturate surrounding areas, and manually dig into the burning peat to drench the embers. Simultaneously, the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) deployed three water-bombing helicopters to drop hundreds of tons of water over the dense smoke plumes. Despite round-the-clock efforts by ground and air teams, the stubborn underground fire resisted quick suppression. It took a grueling ten days of continuous firefighting before authorities could officially declare the Air Merah fire completely extinguished.

Supporting Data and Ecological Realities

To understand why the fires in Sungai Gelam are so destructive and difficult to control, one must examine the unique biophysical properties of tropical peatlands and the extensive human alterations they have undergone.

Hydrological Disruption and Landscape Fragmentation

Historically, tropical peatlands functioned as massive, natural sponge systems. They absorbed torrential tropical rainfall during wet seasons and slowly released moisture during dry periods, maintaining a high water table that naturally fire-proofed the organic soil.

However, over the past few decades, large swaths of Jambi’s peatlands have been subjected to intensive land-use conversions. The establishment of commercial oil palm plantations, smallholder agricultural plots, and the digging of an extensive network of drainage canals have drastically altered the hydrology of the region. Canals originally designed to drain excess water for agriculture inadvertently drained the vital moisture from the peat profile. Consequently, when the dry season arrives, the water table plummets far below the surface, leaving the carbon-rich soil desiccated and highly combustible.

The Mathematics of Destruction and Recovery

The ecological damage inflicted by these fires carries staggering temporal costs. According to ecological science, tropical peat accumulates at an agonizingly slow rate—roughly 0.1 to 2 millimeters per year. When an intense fire sweeps through a peatland, it can easily consume a 10-centimeter layer of organic soil in a matter of hours. Replacing that single 10-centimeter layer requires anywhere from 50 to 1,000 years of uninterrupted natural accumulation.

Furthermore, hydrological restoration is not a quick fix. Experts note that once a peatland loses its hydrological integrity, simply blocking a canal does not immediately solve the problem. It typically takes three to four years of consistent water management just to stabilize the groundwater table back to a safe, fire-resistant level.

With over 10,000 hectares already burned across Jambi by September 2026, the province faces an ecological deficit that will take generations—if not centuries—to repair, compounded by the massive pulse of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere with every hectare burned.

Official Responses and Expert Perspectives

The recurring nature of Indonesia’s forest fires has prompted sharp critiques from academic and environmental authorities, who argue that current disaster management paradigms remain dangerously reactive.

The Flaw of Reactive Responses

Sri Wilarso Budi, a distinguished Professor at IPB University (Bogor Agricultural University), has strongly criticized the prevailing emergency response framework. Speaking on the systemic handling of the crisis, Prof. Wilarso emphasized that meteorological agencies provide long-range weather forecasts months in advance, giving authorities ample warning of impending prolonged dry seasons.

"Shouldn’t this have been anticipated from the very beginning?" Prof. Wilarso stated, critiquing the current operational model. "We must not wait until the fire has grown massive before everyone finally mobilizes. By then, it is already too late."

Hydrological Unity vs. Consectoral Boundaries

Prof. Wilarso also highlighted a fundamental administrative flaw in how peatlands are managed. Peatlands cannot be effectively managed or protected based on arbitrary administrative borders, land titles, or individual concession boundaries. Because peat domes function as singular hydrological units, an ecological intervention—or environmental degradation—in one section directly impacts the water table and ecological stability of the entire hydrological system.

Building canal blockings, for instance, cannot be delayed until the dry season sets in and smoke begins to rise. Infrastructure designed to retain water must be established proactively during the rainy season. Furthermore, watershed management must involve cross-sectoral and cross-ownership cooperation, uniting smallholders, private concessionaires, and local governments under a unified hydrological management plan.

Implications: Paradigm Shift Toward Early Warning and Community Restoration

Recognizing that traditional firefighting is a losing battle against dry peat, conservationists, researchers, and local communities are pioneering a new approach centered on proactive early warning and ecosystem restoration.

Technological Intervention: Low-Cost Early Warning Systems

To bridge the gap between regional meteorological data and hyper-local fire risks, the Fincapes project has introduced a technological intervention in the Air Merah Community Forest (HKm). The initiative has installed low-cost, high-efficiency early warning devices directly within vulnerable peat zones.

These solar-powered units are equipped with an array of sensitive environmental monitors:

• Smoke and particulate sensors to detect early smoldering combustion.
• Temperature and relative humidity monitors to gauge atmospheric drying.
• Rainfall gauges to track local precipitation deficits.
• Wind direction sensors to predict fire spread vectors.
• Soil moisture and groundwater table depth sensors to measure the exact saturation level of the peat.

When sensor readings cross critical danger thresholds, an integrated siren system sounds automatically, alerting local residents immediately. Simultaneously, real-time data is transmitted to an online dashboard, allowing community watch groups and local disaster agencies to monitor field conditions remotely from smartphones or computers. This technology gives residents something invaluable: the precious window of time needed to extinguish a small spark before it transforms into a catastrophic blaze.

Community-Based Agroforestry and Landscape Restoration

Technology alone cannot reverse decades of ecological degradation; the landscape itself must be healed. To this end, a comprehensive restoration initiative covering 47 hectares of degraded land in Sungai Gelam is currently underway.

Rather than enforcing strict exclusion zones that alienate local farmers, the restoration model integrates ecological recovery with sustainable local livelihoods through agroforestry. A total of 80,000 native peat-swamp tree seedlings—including high-value native species such as Jelutung Rawa (Dyera polyphylla), Balangeran (Shorea balangeran), and Pulai (Alstonia scholaris)—are being systematically interplanted among existing smallholder pineapple and areca nut gardens.

These native species are uniquely adapted to waterlogged, acidic peat soils. As they grow, their extensive root systems help bind the soil, shade the understory to reduce surface evaporation, and gradually restore the microclimate’s humidity.

Looking Ahead to 2028

Stakeholders have set an ambitious target: by 2028, Sungai Gelam is envisioned to become a national model for community-based peatland restoration. For the residents of Desa Persiapan Air Merah—who have spent the last decade running toward smoke with buckets and broken dreams—this integrated strategy represents more than just conservation policy. It represents a hard-earned transition away from perpetual devastation, offering a sustainable path toward living in harmony with, rather than fighting against, the fragile peatlands they call home.