JAKARTA — 2023 saw the worst fire season in Indonesia since 2019, with an area the size of Qatar going up in flames, according to official government data. A total of 1.16 million hectares (2.87 million acres) of land and forest were burned last year, with an intense El Niño weather pattern a major factor. The fires led to 13,260 hectares (32,800 acres) of primary forest loss, according to data from the University of Maryland available at the Global Forest Watch (GFW) platform administered by the World Resources Institute (WRI). These figures, while alarming on their own, are much lower than the acreage burned and primary forest loss from 2019, when the country experienced a milder El Niño. That’s an indication that Indonesia is heading in the right direction in terms of fire prevention and mitigation, said Arief Wijaya, the program director at the WRI Indonesia. “Indeed, the government and the private sector already have strong commitments for [mitigating] fires,” Arief told Mongabay. “Even large concessions are working together with the people to tackle fires.” Hilman Afif, a campaigner at the environmental NGO Auriga Nusantara, said the new data highlight another, more disturbing trend: that major fire seasons are now routinely recurring every five years. One of the most severe fire seasons in Indonesia occurred in 2015, followed by a less intense one in 2019. That means the country can expect another major fire episode four years from now, Hilman said, with that four-year cycle potentially becoming shorter and more…This article was originally published on Mongabay