Thick haze disrupts flights on Indonesia's Borneo island

PONTIANAK, Indonesia -- Thick smoke from forest fires has disrupted airline flights for several days in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province as an intensifying El Niño weather pattern and a prolonged dry season worsen the impact of blazes.Since Friday, a thick white and yellowish haze has blanketed the city of Pontianak, reducing visibility to less than 1 kilometer (0.62 miles).Poor air quality and limited visibility have also hampered firefighting efforts, carried out with equipment from Japan that arrived on Thursday.Across Indonesia, seasonal forest fires are beginning to subside, but thick haze still shrouds parts of the island of Kalimantan. In a written statement on Monday, the Ministry of Forestry stated that the latest monitoring data shows a significant decrease in so-called “high-confidence” hot spots, strongly suspected to be caused by forest fires, in Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan. There are no high-confidence hot spots in Riau province. “The thick smoke we’re currently experiencing, if we look in the direction the wind is blowing, is also smoke carried here from other provinces on the island of Kalimantan that are also on fire,” said the head of the Disaster I...