Firefighters battle peatland blazes as haze shrouds Indonesian city

Firefighters on a western Indonesian island were battling large peatland fires that have covered Palembang, a city of nearly two million people, in a haze for weeks.

A prolonged dry season has caused higher risks of wildfires on the archipelago nation's major islands, stoking fears of repeat haze-belching forest fires that have also affected neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore in recent years. The fire has burned through 75 hectares of peatland in the Ogan Ilir regency of South Sumatra province of Indonesia.