HAZE

VADS CORNER — Haze, Smoke, Fire, API, PSI · Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei
Online since 22 September 1997 · Comprehensively revised 26 August 2026

This site was set up during the 1997 haze in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the surrounding region, caused by forest and peatland fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra. Readers asked for it after the enterovirus outbreak page earlier that year; it went up on 22 September 1997 and took fourteen thousand hits in three weeks. It has been updated at intervals ever since. It will be updated from time to time and retained as a reminder to us, as to what can go wrong if we are not careful.

Live monitoring — start here

Malaysia

• APIMS — Air Pollutant Index Management System FIXED — now on the MyEQMS platform; the legacy apims.doe.gov.my address is retired. Real-time API by station, free and without registration, updated hourly. The same data is carried by the MyJAS EQMS mobile app, which replaced the older MyIPU app. Band detail under Air quality index, country by country below.
• Department of Environment FIXED — see also the press statement archive NEW, which carried near-daily haze status bulletins during the July 2025 episode.
• MetMalaysia FIXED — monsoon onset announcements, heatwave alerts and forecasts.
• Ministry of Health Malaysia NEW
• iDengue NEW — MOH and the Malaysian Space Agency. Included because dry-season fire years and dengue years travel together.

Regional — ASEAN

• ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) NEW — the designated regional haze monitoring body since 1993, hosted by the Meteorological Service Singapore. This should now be the first place you look, and it was missing from this page for twenty years.
  • Alert levels and early warnings
  • Hotspot distribution and counts
  • GIS portal — hotspots, rainfall and peatland layers
  • WIS 2.0 portal — 24-hour surface PM10 prediction
• ASEAN Haze Portal FIXED — replaces haze.asean.org. Agreement text and the Second Haze-Free Roadmap 2023–2030.
• ASEAN Fire Alert NEW

Air quality index, country by country NEW

• Malaysia — API. APIMS, Department of Environment. Carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide reported in ppmv, with PM2.5 in µg/m³. Above 500, a state of emergency is declared in the reporting area: non-essential government services are suspended and ports closed.
• Singapore — PSI. Haze information and PSI, Meteorological Service Singapore FIXED — replaces the old haze.gov.sg microsite. See also the National Environment Agency.
• Indonesia — ISPU. ISPU, Ministry of Environment and Forestry NEW — seven pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO₂, SO₂, CO, O₃ and hydrocarbon) across 72 stations, under Ministerial Regulation 14 of 2020. Bands: 0–50 baik (good), 51–100 sedang (moderate), 101–200 tidak sehat (unhealthy), 201–300 sangat tidak sehat (very unhealthy), above 300 berbahaya (hazardous). The domain has appeared under two names — ispu.menlhk.go.id and ispu.kemenlh.go.id; if one fails, try the other, or use the ISPU Net app on Android or iOS. Note the non-comparability with Malaysia’s API: both share band structure, but not the same pollutant weightings or averaging periods.
• Thailand — AQI. Pollution Control Department FIXED
• Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam and the rest of ASEAN. I have not verified current official portals for these. Use the aggregators below, or the ASMC regional picture above. If you know a working government link, please send it.

Forecasting the smoke, not just measuring it NEW

• BMKG — Informasi Kualitas Udara Indonesia NEW — the most useful page on this site for anyone downwind. Six services in one place, all updated daily at 08:00 WIB:
  • Extreme air quality early warning — three-day PM2.5 forecast for Indonesia, flagging unhealthy, very unhealthy and hazardous conditions by province.
  • Haze dispersion forecast — three-day prediction of smoke particulate spread using Aerosol Optical Depth at 550 nm, specific to biomass burning. Source-region forecasting, which is what Malaysia lacks.
  • Numerical pollutant dispersion model — air quality conditions influenced by concentration, temperature, humidity and wind.
  • Near-real-time PM2.5 monitoring — from BMKG’s national network, with seven-day history.
  • Daily satellite hotspot monitoring — count and location of active fire detections across Indonesia, with archived data.
  • Fire potential prediction — monthly forecast of forest and land fire risk at low, moderate and high levels, covering up to seven months ahead.
• ASMC WIS 2.0 — 24-hour surface PM10 prediction across the ASEAN region.

Seasonal outlook

• SIIA Haze Outlook NEW — the Singapore Institute of International Affairs has published an annual regional haze risk assessment since 2019, rated green, amber or red. The 2026 edition went red in June and named August and September as the peak danger period. Worth watching each June.

Independent aggregators — for cross-border comparison

• World Air Quality Index NEW — normalises national data onto one scale. The practical way to compare across borders, and the fallback for ASEAN countries whose own portals are not listed above.
• IQAir — Malaysia NEW — source of the "most polluted city" rankings that appear in the press.
• AirNow — United States, and a useful model for how advisories can be presented.

Indonesian fire and peatland monitoring

• Nusantara Atlas NEW — independent forest and fire monitoring; burned-area figures.
• Pantau Gambut NEW — peatland monitoring, including hotspots inside concession areas.

Satellite and global fire monitoring

• NASA FIRMS — near-real-time active fire detection. Still the clearest answer to anyone who says the source of the smoke is uncertain.
• NASA Earthdata FIRMS FIXED
• Global Fire Monitoring Center — current significant global fire events. (Thanks to John D Anderson, who supplied these links originally.)
• Regional Fire Management Resource Center — South East Asia
• NASA Earth Observatory — Fires FIXED
• CRISP FIXED — Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, National University of Singapore. Satellite imagery of the region; the source of many of the fire and smoke images used during the 1997–98 episodes.
• Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service NEW
• Copernicus Climate Change Service NEW — monthly global climate bulletins; the source of the "warmest month on record" headlines.
• Global Forest Watch — Fires NEW

Health effects of haze

Advice and protection

• Precautions to be taken — on this site. Due for review against current guidance.
• How to wear a face mask — on this site since 1997, and now out of date. It predates the general public use of N95 respirators. Use the sources immediately below instead; this page is retained for the record and is due for rewriting.
• WHO — wildfires and health NEW
• US CDC — wildfire smoke and health NEW
• US EPA — DIY air cleaners for wildfire smoke NEW — a box fan and a filter. Cheap, well-evidenced, and badly under-promoted in this region.
• MOH Clinical Guidelines on Management of Heat Related Illness (2016, PDF) NEW — our own guidance, hosted on the Global Heat Health Information Network site.
• Ministry of Health — Jerebu (Haze) NEW — the Ministry's own standing haze page, under Health Information. This is where the Director-General's statements on haze-related illness are collected, and it is the current source that should be consulted first.
• MOH public information leaflet (PDF) — on this site. A scan of the printed leaflet from an earlier episode; retained as a record of what the public advice looked like at the time. Check the Ministry page above for anything current.
• Haze advice (PDF) — on this site, same vintage and the same caveat.

What the API figures mean

API bands: 0–50 good · 51–100 moderate · 101–200 unhealthy · 201–300 very unhealthy · 301–500 hazardous · above 500 emergency — at which point non-essential government services are suspended and ports in the affected area closed.

Masks and respirators — current guidance NEW

The short version: only a well-fitted N95 or P100 helps. Surgical masks, cloth masks, single-strap dust masks and bandanas do not filter fine particulate. Fit matters more than the rating — a good respirator with a gap at the nose bridge leaks more air than it filters. No mask protects against the gases in smoke, only the particles. And staying indoors remains more effective than any mask.

• US EPA — Protect yourself from wildfire smoke and ash NEW — the clearest public-facing page. Choose a respirator with two straps that seals over the nose and under the chin, and check the seal per the package instructions. If you become dizzy, breathless or develop facial discomfort or headache while wearing one, go somewhere with cleaner air and remove it.
• Protect Your Lungs from Wildfire Smoke or Ash (PDF, June 2026) NEW — a one-page EPA factsheet with the fitting illustration. The one to print for a clinic waiting room.
• Washington State Department of Health — Protect yourself and others FIXED — the most practical on the awkward questions. N95s filter fine particles but not gases such as carbon monoxide; beards and facial hair prevent a proper seal; adult small N95s will likely fit children aged seven and over, and smaller sizes are not made. Includes a fitting video.
• CDC — Identifying NIOSH Approved respirators FIXED — replaces the retired cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part/ pages. How to read the markings and tell an approved respirator from a counterfeit: manufacturer name, part number, filter series, and a TC approval number in the form TC-84A-XXXX.
• NIOSH Certified Equipment List NEW — searchable. Enter the TC number printed on the respirator and confirm it is what it claims to be.
• US EPA — Wildfires and indoor air quality NEW — what to do indoors, which matters more than the mask: windows and doors closed, fans and air conditioning to stay cool, and airing the house whenever the air improves, even briefly.
• US EPA — DIY air cleaners for wildfire smoke — a box fan and a filter. Cheap, well-evidenced, and badly under-promoted in this region.

Air quality standards

• New Malaysia Ambient Air Quality Standard NEW — PM2.5 at 35 µg/m³ over 24 hours and 15 µg/m³ annually, fully in force since 2020. Note that SUHAKAM records this as policy guidance with no legal basis; Malaysian law regulates industrial point sources, not ambient air.
• WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines 2021 NEW — PM2.5 at 15 µg/m³ over 24 hours and 5 µg/m³ annually. Our annual figure sits at WHO interim target 3.
• US EPA — criteria air pollutants FIXED · particulate matter · NAAQS
• UK Air Information Resource FIXED
• European Environment Agency — air pollution FIXED

Peer-reviewed evidence NEW SECTION

This page carried MEDLINE search links for twenty years but almost no actual papers. These are the studies worth reading, all open access unless noted. Fuller notes on each in HAZE-OC II.

Smoke haze

• A scoping review on the health effects of smoke haze from vegetation and peatland fires in Southeast Asia
  Phung VLH et al. PLOS ONE 2022;17(9):e0274433. Explains why published mortality estimates range from about 1,064 to 260,000. Read this before quoting any haze death toll.
• The health impacts of Indonesian peatland fires
  Environmental Health 2022;21:62. Peat smoke as a chronic annual exposure — roughly 33,100 adult and 2,900 infant premature deaths a year. The finding that reframes the problem.
• Public health impacts of the severe haze in Equatorial Asia in September–October 2015
  Koplitz SN et al. Environmental Research Letters 2016;11:094023. The benchmark modelling study for 2015.
• Association between PM10 and respiratory disease admissions in Peninsular Malaysia during haze
  Scientific Reports 2024;14. 92 government hospitals, 2000–2019. The best domestic reference for a talk or a letter.
• Acute health impacts of the Southeast Asian transboundary haze problem — a review
  Cheong KH et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2019;16(18):3286. The clearest summary of the acute clinical picture.
• Long-term exposure to particulate matter and mortality in the Asia-Pacific NEW
  J Korean Med Sci 2025;40:e156. Per 10 µg/m³ PM2.5: all-cause mortality RR 1.11, cardiovascular 1.13, stroke 1.12. Useful for turning an API reading into something a patient understands.
• Smoke haze and child health in Southeast Asia: Palembang, Indonesia NEW
  Annals of Global Health 2026. 366,632 childhood ARI cases and 27,574 pneumonia cases over a decade in a city subject to annual peat fires.
• Early Childhood during Indonesia's Wildfires: Health Outcomes and Long-Run Schooling Achievements NEW
  Lo Bue MC. Economic Development and Cultural Change 2019;67(4):969–1003. Free full text. Exposure at 12–36 months during the 1997 fires cost about 0.9 SD in height-for-age, and that deficit predicted fewer completed grades of schooling. Note carefully: it does not find a significant effect on cognitive test scores, though several secondary summaries report one.

Climate and health

• The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change NEW — the annual global stocktake. There is also a Malaysia policy brief, little circulated among Malaysian doctors.
• WHO — Climate change and health NEW — including the operational framework for climate-resilient health systems.
• ClimaHealth NEW — the joint WHO–WMO climate and health portal.
• Global Heat Health Information Network NEW — heat action plan templates and clinical guidance.
• IPCC NEW — the Summary for Policymakers and the Asia regional fact sheet are an evening's reading.

• PubMed FIXED — replaces the old NCBI Entrez query links. Try haze health Southeast Asia, peatland fire mortality, or biomass smoke cardiovascular.

Agreements, policy and accountability NEW SECTION

• ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution FIXED — signed in Kuala Lumpur on 10 June 2002, in force November 2003. Malaysia ratified first; Indonesia last, in 2014. Article 3 places a responsibility on states not to harm others' environment or health, but the Agreement carries no enforcement or dispute resolution mechanism. In twenty-three years no state has brought a claim against another.
• ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control (ACCTHPC) NEW — its Jakarta office finally opened on 22 April 2026, a decade after Indonesia was designated to host it.
• ASEAN Environment FIXED — replaces the defunct aseansec.org pages.
• Silent Enemy: Report on Haze Pollution and the Right to Clean Air (PDF) NEW — SUHAKAM, 24 September 2024. The Commission's first environmental report, from a complaint by the CERAH Coalition. If you read one thing on this subject, read this. Index at suhakam.org.my/publications.
• NRES NEW — the Ministry, including its consultation paper on the National Climate Change Bill.
• Malaysian Bar — on the shelved Transboundary Haze Pollution Act NEW — drafted 2018, tabled 2019, shelved August 2020 on evidentiary grounds.
• CSIS — Examining transboundary haze in Southeast Asia NEW — notes that Malaysia's draft, unlike Singapore's 2014 Act, would have reached only domestic firms.
• Greenpeace Malaysia — ASEAN Haze Trauma report NEW — source for the 2019 sealing of 62 companies, of which six were Malaysian and nine Singaporean.
• Climate Change Laws of the World — Malaysia NEW — Grantham Institute database.
• Eco-Business NEW — the most consistent English-language reporting on regional haze and climate policy.
• Mongabay NEW — on-the-ground reporting from Indonesian fire provinces.

My own writing on the haze

Seven Cybermed columns in Berita MMA, and the piece that succeeds them.

• Hazedous — Vol.27 No.10, October 1997
• Review — Vol.28 No.2, February 1998
• Enterovirus, Haze, Nipah and Dioxin. What's Next? — Vol.29 No.6, June 1999
• Clouding the Issue — Vol.29 No.8, August 1999
• A.P.I : Time to put it out! — Vol.34 No.6, June 2004
• Release AP-I………Dr. m — Vol.35 No.7, July 2005
• HAZE-OC — Vol.36 No.9, September 2006
• HAZE-OC II — Kerbside Consult 1/2026 NEW
• Breathing Space — Kerbside Consult 2/2026 NEW. What to do about the haze: masks, indoor air, who is at risk, when to see a doctor. Plain and printable — start here if you are not a clinician.

Also on this site, and quoted at length in A.P.I : Time to put it out!: Haze: Are we hazy about the facts, written by Dr Rampal. Full column index at Cybermed; current writing at Kerbside Consult.

Related pages

• Fire, Smoke and Haze — the global companion page (wildfires in the US, Russia, Amazon, Greece, Canada, Australia). Online since 22 September 1997; largely of historical interest now.
• Malaysian Medical Association FIXED

Still live from 1999 NEW

One BBC page from that era survives, and it is worth keeping for a reason beyond nostalgia.

• BBC News — Flashback to Haze '98 NEW — published 2 August 1999, part of the BBC's Haze '98 special report. Its Internet links panel lists six sites: Indonesia Online, Haze links (this page, then at its GeoCities address), Asean Haze Action online, International Forest Fire News, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Rainforest Action Network. Most of that list was institutional. Two days after it was published, a reader in Singapore arrived here from the BBC and signed the guestbook to suggest I get a proper domain.

Archive — dead links retained for the record

The links below no longer resolve. They are kept because they document how the 1997–2006 episodes were reported at the time, and because the disappearance of a decade of news coverage is itself worth noticing. Original URLs are shown but not linked. Some may be recoverable through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Retired agency and satellite services ARCHIVE

toms.gsfc.nasa.gov — Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer aerosol index. Instrument retired; superseded by NASA Ozone Watch and Copernicus CAMS.
modarch.gsfc.nasa.gov/fire_atlas/ — MODIS Global Fire Atlas. Superseded by FIRMS.
rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/firemaps/ — MODIS Rapid Response. Superseded by FIRMS.
fs.fed.us/eng/indofire/ — USDA Forest Service Indonesian Fire Maps.
grid.unep.ch — UNEP GRID Geneva fire monitoring.
nectec.or.th/haze/ — Thailand haze information.
concord.org/haze/ — Haze Span, by Forrest M. Mims III.
deja.com — Usenet search, absorbed into Google Groups.
airquality.co.uk/archive/ — UK National Air Quality Archive, replaced by uk-air.defra.gov.uk.
who.dk — WHO Regional Office for Europe, now who.int/europe.

The Ilyushin-76 waterbomber correspondence, 1998–2002 ARCHIVE

A long exchange, mostly with John D Anderson and Stuart B Dobson, about whether the world's largest waterbomber was being unreasonably ignored by Western fire authorities. Nearly all external links are dead; the locally hosted documents survive.

Still on this site: Opinion: World's Best Fire-Fighting Plane Ignored · Catherine Ford, Canadian opinion-shaper · Russia So Far Denied Invitation to Centre Stage in Environmental Defence · Media statement from Australia's Planet Ark · A reader responds · Common Misconceptions… (PDF) · Press Release 2001/1 (PDF) VERIFY

Dead: waterbomber.com · go.to/waterbomber · members.xoom.com/cmm20/Ilyushin-76.mpg · didyouknow.com/firefighters.htm · ABC News, Christian Science Monitor, WorldNetDaily and Air Safety Week articles · gazeta.ru/rus_rescue.shtml

Ilyushin Il-76 — Wikipedia survives as a reference.

Winner of the Top 5 of CARI Awards, January 1998.

Content current as at 28 August 2026. Links last checked 28 August 2026.

Suggestions and corrections are welcome by email. Links were checked on 26 August 2026; those marked VERIFY could not be confirmed and should be tested before you rely on them. As always, some news links are retained though dead, as a reminder of the events that took place.