Australia will join Indonesia’s waterbombing operations to help bring under control fires that have been burning for months across some of the country’s largest islands, Indonesia’s disaster agency has said.
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has dispatched a C-130 Hercules and a Cessna Citation aircraft, which are expected to join the firefighting effort from 6 to 12 November, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said in a statement on Thursday.
Indonesia is battling its most intense wildfires in 11 years, with large areas scorched mainly on Sumatra, Borneo and Papua. The fires have already taken a heavy toll on public health: fire and haze had caused more than 400,000 cases of acute respiratory infection in seven provinces as of 2 November, according to Health Ministry data cited by Reuters.
The head of the disaster agency, Kristomei Sianturi, said Indonesia had continued to make what he called massive efforts to control the fires, including waterbombing and cloud seeding, as well as seeking assistance from abroad. Australia’s ambassador, Roderick Bruce Brazier, said in the same statement that the support included a Large Air Tanker aircraft capable of dropping up to 15,000 litres of water per sortie, with an estimated capacity of up to six sorties a day.
The announcement came days after a waterbombing helicopter crashed in Central Kalimantan, on Borneo, on Wednesday, killing one crew member and injuring five others, according to the military. Two remaining officers had yet to be evacuated, the military said.
For communities living under months of smoke, outside help of this kind matters for more than the fire line. Haze from burning land can linger for weeks, closing schools, grounding flights and forcing people indoors, and the health figures reported so far underline how far the damage extends beyond the areas actually burning. A week-long deployment will not end a season of fires on its own, but additional air capacity at the height of the emergency can help crews protect settlements and slow the spread while ground teams work in difficult terrain.
Note: the featured image is a file photo of haze in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, taken on 18 August 2026, not a photograph of the current firefighting operation.
Sources: Reuters, “Australia to join Indonesia’s wildfire waterbombing operations, disaster agency says” (5 November 2026), https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/australia-join-indonesias-wildfire-waterbombing-operations-disaster-agency-says-2026-11-05/
