Indonesia arrests 44 over forest fires as Riau haze deepens
Indonesian authorities have arrested 44 people suspected of starting some of the forest and peatland fires that are spreading health-damaging haze across parts of the region, according to the Associated Press. The arrests were announced on 2025-07-23 as the government tried to show that the fires were not just a matter of dry weather but also of human action.
The AP report says the suspects were presented to reporters in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province, and included a woman among those handcuffed and wearing orange prison uniforms. Officials want the arrests to serve as a deterrent to anyone still clearing land by fire, a practice that remains common despite official warnings and environmental penalties.
The story matters because the fires are not only an Indonesian problem. In recent years, smoke from forest and peat fires has blanketed parts of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand, souring relations with neighbours whenever the haze drifts across borders. That regional pressure helps explain why the arrests drew so much attention.
Riau was the hardest-hit area in the supplied report. Officials said parts of the province were still under thick haze, with Rokan Hilir and Rokan Hulu districts worst affected by fires that had burned about 500 hectares. Visibility fell to less than one kilometre in the worst conditions, a level that affects driving, public health and the work of emergency crews.
The government has also tried to attack the problem from above. According to Suharyanto, who heads Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency, authorities began spreading tons of salt on clouds over Riau to induce artificial rain on Tuesday, and the operation was expected to continue until July 25. That cloud-seeding effort shows how far the response had to go once the fires were already established.
The legal risk is also serious. Those arrested could face prosecution under an environmental protection law that carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence for setting fires to clear land. The AP report says Suharyanto blamed human behaviour as well as drought, and urged the public to report anyone who continued to ignite new blazes. In other words, the state is trying to make the cost of burning land more visible than the short-term benefit of clearing it.
The excerpt also places the crackdown in a longer pattern. Indonesian police arrested 230 people linked to forest fires in 2019, and forest fires on Sumatra and Borneo often return during dry spells. That history matters because it shows the current arrests are not an isolated move but part of an ongoing cycle of enforcement and re-offending.
The immediate facts are simple enough: 44 suspects, worsening haze, a province struggling with fire and visibility, and a government trying to combine arrests with weather modification. What remains unresolved is whether the crackdown will change behaviour quickly enough to spare neighbouring countries another haze season. The arrests also show officials trying to attack both the blazes and the people accused of starting them, rather than relying only on firefighting and weather modification.
