Australia Sends a 15,000-Litre Air Tanker to East Kalimantan as Indonesia Fights Its Worst Fires in 11 Years

Australia has sent a large air tanker and a 20-person team to help Indonesia fight the East Kalimantan fires on Borneo, joining a water-bombing campaign against blazes that have burned for months and spread toxic haze across the region. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service C-130 Large Air Tanker, guided by a Cessna Citation lead aircraft, is scheduled to operate from Nov. 6 to 12, 2026, according to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and Indonesia’s disaster agency.

The deployment follows a joint technical assessment led by Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB). Its head, Lt. Gen. Kristomei Sianturi, said late on Nov. 5 that “there are still many hot spots in the East Kalimantan region,” AFP reported via The Straits Times. BNPB’s assessment ranked East Kalimantan second only to Central Kalimantan in need for extra support, Indonesia’s ANTARA news agency reported.

Key facts

Sources: Australian Embassy Indonesia, ANTARA, AFP via The Straits Times, The Jakarta Post; compiled by The Boston Report.

At full tempo, seven days of operations would deliver roughly 700,000 litres of water, by The Boston Report’s calculation from the embassy’s figure of just over 100,000 litres a day. That is a meaningful addition to local water-bombing, but small next to fires that have burned an area larger than 1.9 million hectares, roughly 19,000 square kilometers, this year.

Indonesia’s worst fire season in more than a decade

Indonesia has been battling its most intense wildfires in 11 years, with large areas scorched on Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua, The Jakarta Post reported. The deforestation monitor Nusantara Atlas estimates the fires consumed more than 1.9 million hectares in the first nine months of the year, and experts link much of the damage to slash-and-burn land clearing tied to timber, palm oil and mining, according to AFP.

The firefighting itself has been deadly. An Indonesian water-bombing helicopter crashed on Wednesday, Nov. 4, while scooping seawater near Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, home to critically endangered orangutans. The army said two crew members were found dead, five were rescued and one was still missing; the environment ministry later put the death toll at three, The Jakarta Post reported. The cause is under investigation.

Indonesia has also turned to cloud seeding and foreign assistance, BNPB’s Sianturi said. The haze has strained ties with neighbors; last month Indonesia and Singapore set up a haze task force and hotline.

The months-long blazes have produced air pollution that drifted across borders and frayed Indonesia’s ties with its neighbors, AFP reported. The Health Ministry’s tally of more than 400,000 people treated for acute respiratory ailments, reported on Nov. 4, makes the haze as much a public health emergency as an environmental one.

A favor returned

Both governments framed the mission as reciprocity. Indonesia sent personnel from BNPB and its military to help Australia during the 2020 bushfires through Operation Bushfire Assist. “Indonesia stood with Australians during the devastating 2020 bushfires, and we remember that support with deep gratitude,” Ambassador Rod Brazier said. Sianturi called the assistance “a symbol of friendship between two countries,” ANTARA reported, echoing President Prabowo Subianto’s line that good neighbors help each other in difficult times. “Australia and Indonesia are longstanding partners on disaster risk management, demonstrated by this deployment,” Sianturi said in the embassy’s release.

Brazier said the deployment followed talks between Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, Dudung Abdurachman, and Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. BNPB said the Australian aircraft began operating from Samarinda, East Kalimantan’s capital, on Friday, Nov. 6, ANTARA reported.

What to watch

The mission is scheduled to end Nov. 12, days before leaders gather for the 49th ASEAN Summit in the Philippines on Nov. 16-18, where transboundary haze is a recurring issue. For regional coverage, see our Southeast Asia news.

Sources

• Australian Embassy Indonesia: Australia Supports Indonesia's Response to Wildfires (Nov. 5, 2026)
• The Straits Times (AFP): Australia sends military aircraft to help fight Indonesia fires (Nov. 6, 2026)
• The Jakarta Post: Australia to join Indonesia's wildfire waterbombing operations (Nov. 6, 2026)
• ANTARA: Indonesia welcomes Australian support, tackle fires in Kalimantan (Nov. 5, 2026)