Indonesian courts already price a burned hectare at over Rp130 million, and this season's fires are being counted in tens of thousands of them

Sixty certified firefighters drawn from across the MIND ID group were deployed to West Kalimantan on 4 September 2026, with personnel contributed by INALUM, ANTAM, Bukit Asam, PT Timah, Freeport Indonesia, and Vale Indonesia. Reporting on 7 September added a further PT Timah team of fifteen sent to the same province, equipped with fire suppression gear and protective equipment.

Maroef Sjamsoeddin, Chief Executive of MIND ID, said the action reflected the group's concern for the environment and for communities, and that the presence of the volunteers supports faster fire control and reduces health risks. Melati Sarnita, Chief Executive of INALUM, said the company must provide benefit and safety to surrounding residents. Restu Widiyantoro leads PT Timah, with Ruddy Nursalam as corporate secretary.

Darwin Saleh Siregar, Chief Executive of Borneo Alumina Indonesia, made the technically important observation. Peatland fires spread and persist underground even after surface flames are extinguished, which is why cooling operations have to continue long after a fire appears to be out.

The scale being responded to

The national picture as recorded in early September gives the deployment its context.

BNPB reported on 5 September that Riau had 18,882.16 hectares burned between 1 January and 4 September, and South Sumatra 1,926.23 hectares as of 3 September, with 92 high confidence hotspots, 1,424 medium confidence, and 40 low confidence detected there. Jambi showed 266 hotspots on BMKG satellite imagery on 3 September. Aerial support in Riau comprised one patrol helicopter, one patrol aircraft with weather modification operations, and five water bombing helicopters. Smaller incidents were logged in East Belitung at 17.81 hectares, West Bangka at 8.5 hectares, Bulungan at 9 hectares, Ponorogo at 4 hectares, and Tojo Una Una at 13 hectares. Berton SP Panjaitan, acting head of the disaster data, information and communication centre at BNPB, issued the standard advisory against land clearing by burning.

South Kalimantan is running heavier. Ronny Eka Saputra, head of the provincial disaster management agency, reported 12,339.74 hectares burned across 2,332 separate incidents through 1 September, with 17,093 hotspots detected through the SIPONGI system drawing on NASA MODIS, SNPP, and NOAA20 satellites. Banjar Regency accounted for 2,737.51 hectares across 441 incidents, South Hulu Sungai 2,203.97 hectares, and Tanah Laut 2,072.35 hectares.

There is also a specifically resource sector ignition mechanism at work. In East Tarakan, BMKG forecaster Ida Bagus Gede Yamuna and Chaizir Zain of the Tarakan environment agency have described shallow coal deposits in scrubland catching fire without any deliberate burning, as reduced rainfall lowers the moisture that normally keeps the coal cool. Coal seams near Universitas Borneo Tarakan extending toward Pantai Amal have been identified as a risk zone.

The number that already exists

Sirkularium's interest here is not in the firefighting, which speaks for itself, but in what happens after the smoke clears.

Indonesia does not need to develop a method for pricing this damage. It has one, it is in regulation, and courts have applied it to reach concrete judgments. In a set of four cases concluded in 2025, the Ministry of Environment secured damages and compulsory restoration totalling more than Rp721 billion. The single largest concerned a fire covering 3,480 hectares in Musi Banyuasin, South Sumatra, where the Jambi High Court upheld compensation of Rp467.843 billion. Other cases in the same set covered 6,360 hectares and 500 hectares in Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan.

Divide the Musi Banyuasin award by its area and the implied figure is roughly Rp134 million per hectare. That is arithmetic on two published numbers rather than a valuation in its own right, and the real calculation under Permen LH No. 7 Tahun 2014 accounts for ecological damage, environmental economic loss, and recovery cost separately, varying by peat depth, forest type, and restoration requirement. But it establishes the order of magnitude that Indonesian courts have been willing to accept.

Set that against the Rp395,000 per hectare at which forest is carried in administrative compensation calculations, and the same hectare is priced roughly three hundred times higher once it burns and reaches a courtroom than while it is standing and intact.

Apply an order of magnitude like that to 12,339.74 hectares in South Kalimantan alone and the arithmetic becomes uncomfortable. Sirkularium would not present such a multiplication as a loss estimate, because each case requires its own assessment and liability has to be established before any figure attaches to anyone. The point is narrower and firmer: the method exists, the courts accept it, and almost none of this season's burned area will ever have it applied.

Sirkularium's view

The mining sector's contribution here is genuinely useful. These companies hold trained emergency response teams, heavy equipment, and logistics capacity in exactly the provinces that need them, and putting 60 certified firefighters into West Kalimantan within days is a real contribution rather than a gesture. Three observations for government and public institutions.

First, burned area should be valued as routinely as it is measured. BNPB and provincial agencies already produce hectare figures by district with satellite confirmation, which is the hard part. Attaching a standard per hectare valuation under existing methodology, published alongside the area data, would convert a disaster statistic into an economic one. Budget holders respond differently to rupiah than to hectares.

Second, the coal seam ignition mechanism deserves a specific policy response. Fires that start in shallow coal without human ignition are a mining legacy issue, not an agricultural one, and they concentrate near old workings and exposed seams. Mapping shallow and exposed coal against fire history would identify the high risk zones cheaply, and remediating them is a reclamation question with a measurable return.

Third, this is where corporate environmental spending becomes demonstrable. Companies deploying firefighting capacity are producing a measurable public benefit, and at present it is recorded as headcount. Valuing the avoided damage, using hectares protected and the same methodology courts apply to hectares lost, would let that contribution appear in the same units as everything else on the balance sheet.

For operators, the case is straightforward. Fire risk on and near concession land is an exposure that can be quantified, and Permen LH No. 7 Tahun 2014 is the instrument that will quantify it if a dispute arises. A company holding an independently verified valuation of its land, water, and ecosystem position, updated with GIS and ground data, can establish both what it protected and what condition its land was in beforehand. That is a far stronger position than reconstructing a baseline from satellite archives after a fire season.

What to watch next is whether the September deployments hold the line in West Kalimantan, whether burned area figures begin to carry valuation alongside them, and whether shallow coal ignition is addressed in reclamation planning rather than treated as weather.