Firefighters battling the Bald Range wildfire near Summerland in Canada's western British Columbia province on August 7, 2026 . [AFP]
Dozens of Indonesian schools were shuttered for a second day Tuesday against the spreading haze of wildfires plaguing the archipelago at the start of a long and intense dry season worsened by El Nino.
In West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo that Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei, the mayor of Pontianak ordered schools closed due to the smoke wafting over the city from fires elsewhere.
Public records show Pontianak has tens of thousands of public school pupils.
Children will learn from home for as long as air quality remains poor, mayor Edi Rusdi Kamtono said in a statement Monday, without stating how many schools were affected.
"We have started to feel it, especially at night and in the morning, as haze has already blanketed the city of Pontianak," he said.
On the island of Java, firefighters battled flames for a ninth day at a national park that has lost 900 hectares to an inferno that broke out on Monday last week.