Oct. 31, 2026, 6:30 AM EDT

Almost every day for months, Indonesian schoolteacher Natanael Undas has gazed up at smoke-filled skies in apocalyptic shades of yellow and orange.

“It looks like Mars, like we’re living on another planet,” said Undas, whose home in central Kalimantan province is at the heart of devastating wildfires generating toxic smog in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia.

Although his family keeps the windows shut at all times, the noxious smoke penetrates the house anyway, sending Undas’ 2-year-old daughter into constant sneezing fits amid a spike in respiratory illnesses in haze-affected regions.

Wildfires are nothing new in Indonesia, whose forests and peatlands are set ablaze each year as family and commercial farms clear land using traditional “slash and burn” methods.…