Women firefighters on Borneo’s peatlands battle blazes, slash‑and‑burn and patriarchy

Women on the front line of Borneo’s peat fires

On a sweltering afternoon in Sungai Putri, a village in Ketapang Regency, Irma straps on heavy rubber boots, slides on a helmet and hops on her motorbike. She is one of 146 women, aged 20 to 58, who make up the Power of Mama – Indonesia’s first all‑female firefighting team. The brigade was launched in 2022 by the NGO YIARI, a civil‑society group that equips its volunteers with firefighting gear, surveillance drones and a custom monitoring app.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the volunteers trek high‑risk forest and plantation edges, record GPS coordinates, snap photographs and feed the data straight to the Manggala Agni forestry brigade, a specialised unit under the Ministry of Forestry. "Because we are housewives, we are the ones that feel its effects most," Irma says, explaining why she signed up.

Confronting slash‑and‑burn and patriarchal attitudes

The biggest obstacle, according to team members, is changing community behaviour. Illegal slash‑and‑burn, a cheap way to clear land for oil‑palm and other crops, still thrives in the region. "The men of the village would tease us: ‘Are women really patrolling?’" Irma recalls. Suriati adds, "Sometimes they think we are showing off. They say, ‘What do mother folk know?’" Yet the women persist, politely urging farmers to contain any fire they start and explaining how smoke endangers children and the elderly.

Peatland fires and a super El Niño

This year, a “super” El Niño has turned the dry season into a tinderbox. According to Harian Kompas, more than 57,081.33 hectares have already burned across Kalimantan, with thousands of hotspots still smouldering beneath peat soils. Peat fires are notoriously hard to extinguish because the flames burn underground. YIARI director Karmele Llano Sanchez warns, "You can’t see the flames, but the burning goes on, and often a light breeze is sufficient to rekindle the fire."

Mark Parrington, senior scientist at the EU’s Copernicus Earth observation programme, notes that seasonal fire emissions and regional haze are already above normal levels, prompting close monitoring of air‑quality impacts.

Irma says the village has not seen rain since late June, leaving ditches and even rivers dry – a condition that makes containment even harder. "Our only option is to gather with the locals at the edges of the plantation or the forest to keep a constant watch on the fire’s progress," she says, eyes fixed on a distant plume.

Recognition and hope

Despite the challenges, Power of Mama’s impact is being felt. In 2023 the team won the Indonesian Clean Air Championship, a national competition that recognises community‑led pollution mitigation. "Protecting the forest is one of our main objectives," says Sanchez, adding that the project also aims to boost women’s confidence and their rightful role in society.

As the super El Niño stretches into the later months, the volunteers remain on alert, hoping that their patrols, community talks and drone‑guided alerts will keep the worst of the haze at bay and prove that women can lead the fight against climate‑driven disasters.