Guarding the Endeared Homelandscape: Wallace Stevens: Late Hymn from the Myrrh-Mountain / Eudora Welty: Place / Rogue Blimp

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THE RUNAWAY BLIMP NEAR MUNCY PA...: image by Carl McDaniel, 29 October 2014

Unsnack your snood, madonna, for the stars

Are shining on all brows of Neversink.

Already the green bird of summer has flown

Away. The night-flies acknowledge these planets,

Predestined to this night, this noise and the place

Of summer. Tomorrow will look like today,

Will appear like it. But it will be an appearance,

A shape left behind, with like wings spreading out,

Brightly empowered with like colors, swarmingly,

But not quite molten, not quite the fluid thing,

A little changed by tips of artifice, changed

By the glints of sound from the grass. These are not

The early constellations, from which came the first

Illustrious intimations -- uncertain love,

The knowledge of being, sense without sense of time.

Take the diamonds from your hair and lay them down.

The deer-grass is thin. The timothy is brown.

The shadow of an external world comes near.

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955): Late Hymn from the Myrrh-Mountain, 1946, from Transport to Summer, 1947

The runaway military #blimp went down near Moreland Township, Pennsylvania, and it looked like this: image via Mashable Verified account @mashable, 28 October 2015

More Frightening Than Halloween. Every day I seem to notice more of these objects in the sky. Big Brother protecting us or is something sinister happening here?: photo by mcnod, 26 October 2015

  

365: Day 121 -- Tethered vs Free Flight. Olympus Digital camera.: photo by Rob Clatterbuck, 28 August 2015

365: Day 238: Aerostat-ic. Phone camera loooking through binoculars (so technically monocular) [Belcamp, Maryland]: photo by Rob Clatterbuck, 28 August 2015

Bald eagle and eyrie. Montour Preserve at Lake Chillisquaqua. Near Exchange, Pennsylvania.: photo by fishhawk, 24 October 2015

Eudora Welty: Place

Place can be transparent, or translucent: not people. In real life we have to express the things plainest and closest to our minds by the clumsy word and the half-finished 

gesture; the chances are our most usual behavior makes sense only in a kind of daily way, because it has become familiar to our nearest and dearest, and still demands 

their constant indulgence and understanding. It is our describable outside that defines us, willy-nilly, to others; that may save us, or destroy us, in the world; it may be 

our shield against chaos, our mask against exposure; but whatever it is, the move we make in the place we live has to signify our intent and meaning.

*

Surely place induces poetry, and when the poet is extremely attentive to what is there, a meaning may even attach to his poem out of the spot on earth where it is 

spoken, and the poem signify the more because it does spring so wholly out of its place, and the sap has run up into it as into a tree.

*

There may come to be new places in our lives that are second spiritual homes closer to us in some ways, perhaps, than our original homes. But the home tie is the blood 

tie. And had it meant nothing to us, any other place thereafter would have meant less, and we would carry no compass inside ourselves to find home ever, anywhere at 

all. We would not even guess what we had missed.
 
Eudora Welty (1909-2001): from Place in Fiction, in The Eye of The Story and Other Essays, 1959

BLIMP DOWN: State Police report #blimp is down in Montour county near Muncy. We got this photo from viewer there.: image via John Meyer Verified account @JohnMeyerWNEP, 28 October 2015

Favorites today, #blimplivesmatter, and headline 'Fled Zeppelin.' photo by Carrie Littlewood: image via Michael K. Dakota @DakotaLDN, 28 October 2015

#foundblimp #bloomsburg #blimp shot by Susan Switzer & Rhame Eyer @LDNews: image via Michael K. Dakota @DakotaLDN, 28 October 2015

 

#foundblimp #bloomsburg #blimp shot by Susan Switzer & Rhame Eyer @LDNews: image via Michael K. Dakota @DakotaLDN, 28 October 2015 

#blimp #BlimpOnTheLoose #BlimpLife #looseblimp She's down in #Millsville: image via Michael K. Dakota @DakotaLDN, 28 October 2015

Another photo of what is believed to be the #blimp via Holly Starr near Bloomsburg, PA: image via CampusWeatherService @PSUWeather, 28 October 2015  State College, PA

A viewer just sent us this photo from Bloomsburg. We are getting numerous reports of sightings in that area. #Blimp: image via John Meyer Verified account @JohnMeyerWNEP, 28 October 2015

State Police used shotguns to deflate #blimpontheloose #blimp: image via WJZ / CBS Baltimore Verified account @cbsbaltimore, 28 October 2015

Runaway U.S. military blimp wreaks havoc in Pennsylvania: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 October 2015

Runaway U.S. military blimp wreaks havoc in Pennsylvania: Joe McDonald and Phil Stewart, Reuters, 28 October 2015 (updated 29 October 2015)

A high-tech U.S. military blimp designed to detect a missile attack came loose on Wednesday and wreaked havoc as it floated from Maryland into Pennsylvania while dragging more than a mile of cable and knocking out power to thousands.

The U.S. military scrambled two armed F-16 fighter jets to keep watch as the massive blimp traveled into civilian airspace after coming untethered from its base at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a U.S. Army facility 40 miles (65 km) northeast of Baltimore.

Pentagon officials said they were unsure why the 242-foot-long blimp broke free at 12:20 p.m. Military officials wrestled for hours over the best way to bring it down safely, but eventually it deflated on its own.

Technically speaking, JLENS is an aerostat, which means tethered airship. It’s anchored to the ground by a 11/8 inch thick super-strong cable. The tether is strong enough to withstand 100 mph winds… and during testing, it accidentally was exposed to a 106 mph storm and did just fine.   Electricity runs up the cable and powers JLENS’ radar, and ones-and-zeroes from the radar run down fiber optic wires to a computer processing station on the ground. In fact, a lot of the things which makes JLENS work are on the ground… including the people who operate the system: photo via Raytheon, 2015 

The blimp, part of a $2.8 billion Army program, landed in a rural, wooded area in Exchange, Pennsylvania, a community outside Bloomsburg, about 150 miles (240 km) north of the Aberdeen Proving Ground.

John Thomas, a spokesman for Columbia County emergency management agency, said there were no reports of injuries but had no more details about the landing.

Pennsylvania police and military officials guarded a wide safety perimeter around the blimp, which settled amid farmland in the remote area. Residents, including members of an Amish community, watched them work under steady rainfall.

A high-tech U.S. military blimp designed to detect a missile attack is pictured coming to the ground in Montour County, Pennsylvania: photo via Reuters/SECV8, a segment of Service Electric Cablevision, 28 October 2015 

The blimp's travels caused widespread damage, officials said. At one point, 30,000 Pennsylvania residents were without power, the governor's office said.

"The tether attached to the aircraft caused widespread power outages across Pennsylvania," said a statement from Governor Tom Wolf's office.

JLENS doesn’t have any weapons, so if it detects an inbound threat like a cruise missile or drone, it will pass that information on to the National Capital Region’s Integrated Air Defense System. Another cool feature is that JLENS works with other air defense systems, like the AMRAAM air-to-air missile, the U.S. Navy’s Standard Missile-6, the U.S. Army’s Patriot air defense system and the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System, which is currently defending the Washington, D.C. area.: photo via Raytheon, 2015

The blimp's travels were a sensation on social media, with hashtags like #Blimpflood and #Blimpmemes ranking among the top trending topics. At least two Twitter parody accounts sprung up, gaining nearly 2,000 followers in just under two hours.

The attention was unlikely to be welcomed by the Army, which calls the program the Joint Land-Attack Cruise Missile Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS. The program was restructured after it overran cost estimates, the Government Accountability Office said in 2014.

JLENS by jay ta.: photo by total annihilation, 4 November 2006

The program is comprised of two blimps, each 242 feet long. The second blimp will be grounded until the military inspects it and finishes an investigation into the unmooring, said Navy Captain Scott Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. military's North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

The system itself is still in a testing phase. Manufacturer Raytheon Co's website says it would become part of the defenses that help protect the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area.

There’s a good reason senior military leaders are concerned about cruise missiles. They fly low, making them really hard for a ground-based radar to spot; there are lots of them out there; and some of them can even be launched from innocent-looking cargo containers. 
Cruise missile defense is literally JLENS’s middle name. When the system is operational at Aberdeen Proving Ground, it will become part of the defenses that help protect the National Capital Region -- the federal government's name for the metro Washington, D.C. area.: photo via Raytheon, 2015

Raytheon's website says the blimps are meant to be tethered to the ground by a "11/8 inch thick super-strong cable," which should withstand 100 mile-per-hour (160 kph) winds. Electricity runs up the cable and powers the radar, the website says.

NORAD said the blimp became untethered while at an altitude of 6,600 feet, far below its maximum recommended altitude of up to 10,000 feet.

By early afternoon, it had climbed to 16,000 feet as it traveled into Pennsylvania.

NORAD said the system was designed to defend against threats beyond cruise missiles, to include drone aircraft and "surface moving targets" such as swarming boats and tanks.

NORAD Blimp Becomes Loose From Mooring: image via WMAL News Verified account @wmalnews, 28 October 2015

 

DETAILS: The 243-foot long helium-filled NORAD Surveillance #blimp broke loose in Maryland: image via Sputnik Verified account @Sputnikint, 28 October 2015

 

U.S. military #blimp escapes, joins @twitter: image via Reuters TV @ReutersTV, 28 October 2015

 

Twitter gets carried away over loose #blimp, no shortage of hot air escapes, joins @twitter: image via CNN Verified account @CNN, 28 October 2015

So, how'd that #blimp get loose yesterday?: image via CNN Verified account @CNN, 29 October 2015

 

Here is the #blimp well part of it...in a tree near Muncy @WNEP: image via Nikki Krize Verified account @NikkiKrize, 28 October 2015  Pennsylvania, USA

Hay day. Making hay while the sun shines. (Cooper, Pennsylvania.): photo by fishhawk, 29 August 2015

 

Covered Bridge Road (I): Farm along Covered Bridge Road, Moreland Township, Lycoming County: photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli, 14 September 2014

Frazier Covered Bridge (I). Moreland Townaship, Lycoming County. The bridge was built in 1888 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It crosses Little Muncy Creek in a quiet, secluded farming valley: photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli, 14 September 2014

Covered Bridge Road (I): Farm along Covered Bridge Road, Moreland Township, Lycoming County: photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli, 14 September 2014



Farming near Klingerstown, Pennsylvania: photo by Scott Bauer, 2005 (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)

Evening. Sky patterns. (Danville, Pennsylvania.): photo by fishhawk, 29 August 2015

Silent Spring

Though the clouds suggest spraying the trees indicate autumn

THE RUNAWAY BLIMP DOWN NEAR MUNCY PA........These are not my pictures.......I went out to the scene from the restaurant in Turbotville only to be stopped by the Pa State Police about a mile from the blimp.......: image by Carl McDaniel, 29 October 2014

THE RUNAWAY BLIMP: image by Carl McDaniel, 29 October 2015

Lunar eclipse. Peak. (Danville, Pennsylvania.): photo by fishhawk, 27 September 2015

 

JLENS. We won't spy on you. Trust us.: image by Richard Thompson, 29 October 2015

JLENS_028: photo by Aberdeen Proving Grounds, 18 August 2014

Ridgelines and valleys at sunset. Evening ridgeline landscape. (Danville, Pennsylvania.): photo by fishhawk, 12 October 2015

Hsieh T'iao: Viewing the Three Lakes

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island in Lake Vuoksa, on the Karelian Isthmus separating Russia and Finland: photo by Dmitry A. Mottl, 2009

Red clouds mirrored where the waters meet.

From the red terrace -- birds returning,

the encircling plains, mosaic of river isles.

Inklings of spring's luxuriance

as autumn's last yellows fade.

Dusk falling, and sadness

over friends.  No ending

to this connectedness.

Hsieh T'iao (464-499): Viewing the Three Lakes, English version by Barry Taylor, 2015

Small island in Lower Saranac Lake, Adirondack Mountains: photo by Mwanner, 2007

Panoramic View of the Seven Rila Lakes, Rila Mountains, Bulgaria: photo by Anthony Ganev, 1 July 2007; image by Fir0002, 13 October 2008

 

The first turn of the Yangtze (Changjiang = Yangzi Kiang), at Shigu, Yunnan Province: photo by Jialiang Gao, 2003

 


View towards four of the Seven Rila Lakes -- Dolnoto, Ribnoto, Trilistnika and Bliznaka -- in the Rila Mountains of Bulgaria: photo by Ivelin Minkov, 17 September 2006

Indonesia Is On Fire: A dismal Situation

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Lorries cross a bridge shrouded in haze in Klang, Malaysia, on Wednesday. The thick so-called “haze,” caused by slash-and-burn clearances on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, has pushed air quality to unhealthy levels in Malaysia and neighboring Singapore: photo by Olivia Harris/Reuters, 7 October 2015

 

At once as far as Angels kenn he views
The dismal Situation waste and wilde,
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd onely to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed 

With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd

 

John Milton: Paradise Lost, Book I

Sun in Haze (Singapore): photo by aamanatullah,  24 September 2015

Haze (Singapore): photo by aamanatullah, 24 September 2015

Hazy Singapore. Potong Pasir, Singapore. Taken during record high PSI level of 371: photo by looyah,  20 September 2013

PS! 253 over Tiong Bahru, Central Singapore. You could see, smell and taste the haze tonight in Tiong Bahru area. The air is no more fresh and you deeply breathe smoke if you don't wear a proper mask (#N95 at least). Condition worsens a lot today. Massive deforestation (mostly in Sumatra and Borneo) to increase palm oil production is ongoing. To speed up the process, people burning a forest. The heavy and dense smoke is then spreading all over the region from Kuala Lumpur to Palembang: photo Charles Collier, 24 September 2015

Caught in the fires

A male orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) in Tanjung Puting National park, Central Kalimantang, Indonesia: photo by CIFOR, 13 August 2010

Widespread forest fires, many set deliberately to clear land for oil palm plantations, have been disastrous for Sumatran orangutans. Thousands are thought to have burned to death, unable to escape the flames both in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The species' range is now severely circumscribed, says WWF in Jakarta. Of nine populations left in Sumatra, only seven are thought viable. "The fate of Sumatran orangutans is inextricably linked to the island's fast-disappearing forests. If we want to save the Sumatran orangutan we have to save their forest home," said Barney Long, WWF's Asian species expert.

 

John Vidal, The Guardian, 26 May 2015

Orangutan, Sumatra, Indonesia: photo by Carol Mitchell, 12 July 2014



Smoke rises as a fire burns in a forest in Ogan Komering Ilir Regency, a regency of South Sumatra province, Indonesia: photo by Nova Wahyudi/Antara Foto/Reuters, 20 October 2015

Orangutans in the haze shrouding the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation camp: photo by Antara Foto/Reuters, 5 October 2015: image via John R Platt @johnrplatt, 22 October 2015  PORTLAND, OR

Orangutans Are Dying as Indonesia Burns: Thousands of forest fires set by palm oil companies across Sumatra and Borneo threaten not just endangered apes but the global climate: John R. Platt, TakePart, 22 October 2015

Indonesia is on fire.

Right now, tens of thousands of small forest fires are burning across the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the only habitats for orangutans and other rare species. Many of the fires appear to have been intentionally set by palm oil companies, which employ slash-and-burn agriculture to clear land of native trees to plant their cash crop, which is used as an ingredient in everything from food to cosmetics.

Richard Zimmerman, executive director of Orangutan Outreach, calls the conflagrations a disaster for endangered orangutans. Some of the fires are burning in important orangutan habitats, including Borneo’s Sabangau National Park, thought to hold the largest wild population of orangutans. “This is catastrophic,” Zimmerman said. He said he’s worried about how many wild orangutans have died from the flames and resulting smoke.

“The problem with fire and smoke is absolutely dire,” said Lis Key, communications manager for International Animal Rescue, which runs a rehabilitation center for more than 125 injured and orphaned orangutans in Ketapang, Borneo.

“Wild orangutans and orangutans in centers like ours are badly affected by the smoke,” she said. “Some suffer upper respiratory tract infections, which can even prove fatal. Some of the babies we’ve taken in recently have been suffering not only from dehydration and malnourishment through lack of food but also breathing problems from the polluted air.”

 

No matter where the fires are, they have raged out of control owing to an abnormally dry and windy season caused by El Niño weather patterns. Zimmerman said the situation is similar to that in drought-plagued California, where forest fires have grown in frequency and intensity over the past few years.

Indonesia’s fires are much worse than California’s, however. Not only are they deliberately set, but many of them occur in carbon-rich peat forests. These forests -- which would normally be wet and hard to burn at this time of year -- grow out of several meters’ worth of damp, rich organic matter instead of soil. Zimmerman said the peat forests are so dry this year that “one match or a cigarette would let it all go up in flames.”

Not only does this release more carbon than normal forest fires, but it makes fires harder to control. “Even if things look fine, there are actually fires burning 20 feet below the ground,” Zimmerman said. “You have these teams of people doing their best to extinguish small fires or hot spots, but the fire can come back up 100 meters behind them. It’s a constant vigil.”

Orangutans have more to fear than just the fire. The flames and smoke are pushing them out of their already reduced habitats and closer to human villages, where the adults are killed and the young apes are sold into the pet trade. In the past week, International Animal Rescue saved one such young orangutan, Gito, who had been kept in a cardboard box and left in the sun to die.

Two more young orangutans were repatriated to Indonesia this week after they were rescued from smuggers at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A report last year from the Great Apes Survival Partnership found that many illegally obtained orangutans are being sold to China for display in zoos and other entertainment facilities.

Although most adult orangutans that escape the fires are killed by poachers, a few are luckier. Key reported that her group recently relocated 10 wild orangutans that had been found “stranded close to palm oil concessions or in areas of forest that have been destroyed by fire.”

The fires threaten more than just Indonesia’s wildlife: They have also created a cloud of smoke and haze big enough to be seen from space and are releasing an estimated 15 to 20 million tons of carbon dioxide per day -- more than he emissions from the entire U.S. economy. “This isn’t just one little fire in one little area,” Zimmerman said. “It’s the whole earth.”

And there’s no end in sight. Malaysia’s environment minister this week warned that the Indonesian fires are so bad that human efforts can't control them until the rainy season begins in mid-November, if then.

Still, Zimmerman said his group is collecting funds to help support villagers, firefighters, and local conservation organizations. After that, it will start surveys to see how many orangutans have been lost. “When these fires finally end, that’s when we’ll see the bodies,” he said.

 

#Indonesia Worst threat in century to people, orangutans, wildlife & Western media's not even mentioning it! #palmoil: image via PeSSouZiX @PeSSouZiX, 23 October 2015

 

Orang-Utan in Bukit Laweng, Nord Sumatra: photo by Tbachner, January 2006

 #Deforestation Drives 80% Of #Indonesia's Emissions, Making It World's 5th Biggest Emitter: image via Assaad Razzouk  @Assaad Razzouk, 8 May 2015

Haze

Students walk along a street as they are released from school to return home earlier due to the haze in Jambi, Indonesia’s Jambi province, Tuesday. Indonesia has sent nearly 21,000 personnel to fight forest fires raging in its northern islands: photo by Antara Foto/Wahdi Setiawan/Reuters, 29 September 2015

#Indonesia readies warships for haze evacuations, says gov't minister. #VOAlert: image via Steve Herman Verified Account @W7VOA, 23 October 2015
 

Forest fires have been burning out of control across Indonesia for months, blanketing Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan province and other parts of South-East Asia in smog: photo by Hugo Hudoyoko/European Pressphoto Agency, 23 October 2015

Muslim students pray for rain to put out the fires which enveloped the region at Palembang 1 senior high school in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia, on Thursday: photo by Feny Selly/Antara Foto/Reuters, 17 September 2015

The dismal Situation waste and wilde

 

Indonesia moves to stop forest fire pollution as haze grips Singapore #smog #cleanair: image via CECHR @CECHR, 16 September 2014

 

#Indonesia's Fire Crises: the biggest environmental crime of the 21st century [Jakarta Globe... by @emeijaard]: image via Alessio Fratticcioli @fratticcioli, 24 October 2015
 

 Indonesia readies warships for haze evacuation: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 24 October 2015

Indonesia readies warships for haze evacuation: AFP, 24 October 2015

Jakarta (AFP) - Indonesia has put warships on standby to evacuate people affected by acrid haze from forest fires which has killed at least 10 and caused respiratory illnesses in half a million, officials said Saturday.

For nearly two months, thousands of fires caused by slash-and-burn farming in Indonesia have choked vast expanses of Southeast Asia, forcing schools to close and scores of flights and some international events to be cancelled.

The government has decided to send ships to haze-affected provinces to evacuate victims, especially children and women, if necessary, with two warships deployed to Kalimantan on Friday and another carrying medical workers and health equipment expected Saturday.

Military spokesman Tatang Sulaiman said the warships, which will be standing by in Banjarmasin, the capital of south Kalimantan, could serve as evacuation centers and hospitals for those affected by the haze.

Tatang said there was no immediate plan to bring people onboard but that could change if hospitals on land reach capacity or become overwhelmed.

"The ships are sent just in case children or pregnant women must be relocated from the local health facilities, it does not mean everyone would be put into the ships," Tatang said.

"So far health facilities on the ground in Kalimantan are still trying their best, we are just getting ready by deploying warships," Tatang said.

Each warship can carry up to 2000 people and has 344 beds onboard.

"For now the ships will be standing by. We will begin evacuation when there is an instruction from the government," navy spokesman Muhammad Zainuddin told AFP. 

'Extraordinary crime'

The government has deployed around 30 aircraft to fight the fires and for cloud seeding with 22,000 troops on the ground to combat the blazes.

Indonesian disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the fires had killed 10 people so far, some fighting the blazes while others died of respiratory illnesses or medical conditions exacerbated by the pollution.

"The impact of the forest fires has caused 10 people in Sumatra and Kalimantan to die, directly and indirectly," Nugroho said.

The figure did not include seven hikers killed in a wildfire on Java last week.

The agency estimated at least half a million people have suffered from respiratory illness since the fires started in July and 43 million people have been affected in the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Nugroho said the figure was likely just the tip of the iceberg because many people did not go to health facilities for treatment.

More than 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of land has been burned and six provinces severely affected by the haze, according to Indonesia's forestry ministry.

"This is due to human acts because 99 percent of forest fires were started deliberately. This is an extraordinary crime against humanity," Nugroho said.

Other countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Japan have sent assistance to help Indonesia fighting the forest fires.

With Malaysia, Singapore and parts of Thailand already affected, the Philippines Friday said the haze had now spread there, disrupting air traffic and prompting warnings for residents to wear face masks.

Palm oil plantations, such as this one covering thousands of hectares, are causing habitat-loss for many Indonesian species, although pangolins are one of a few that have limited tolerance to palm-oil habitats. The average monthly wage for an Indonesian working full-time on a plantation is $47 and many turn to poaching because they can earn 10 times as much: photo by Paul Hilton for WildAid via the Guardian 10 March 2015

Indonesia's Wildfires Are as Bad as Some of the Planet's Worst Air Polluters: An eye-popping amount of greenhouse gas issues from the thousands of blazes in the Southeast Asian country: Liz Dwyer, TakePart, 22 October 2015

They’ve burned for weeks, producing toxic smoke that has blanketed much of Southeast Asia and caused air quality to plummet. But just how bad is the pollution generated by the wildfires raging across Indonesia?

Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 14, the fires -- which are allegedly being intentionally set by businesses looking to make a buck producing palm oil -- may have produced more air pollution than Germany does in a calendar year.

Although Germany has one of the worst pollution problems  in Europe, try this on for size: The pollution generated from the fires is also greater than the single-day emissions of the second-largest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet, the United States.

That’s the startling finding of a team of researchers led by Guido van der Werf, a scientist at VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Van der Werf and his team estimated the amount of air pollution being produced by the fires using data from previous blazes in Indonesia. 

They calculated that the more than 100,000 blazes that have burned Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands this year generated more than 1,102 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. To put that into perspective, in 2013, the entire United States generated 6,673 million metric tons, according to the EPA. 

Thanks to the suffocating haze created by these fires, schools across Indonesia -- and its neighboring nations, Malaysia and Singapore -- are closing intermittently when pollution levels spike. Battling the blazes has been exceptionally difficult for firefighters this year because the island nation is a tinderbox. While El Niño creates wetter conditions on the West Coast of the United States, it leads to drought in Southeast Asia.

Indeed, the arrival of the monsoon in the region has been significantly delayed by El Niño, and Indonesia has been hard hit by the lack of rain. Farmers have suffered extreme crop losses, and in the ultimate irony, given the role the industry allegedly plays in setting the fires, palm oil production is expected to drop.

Van der Werf’s team found that more than 4,700 fires were burning in Indonesia on Oct. 14 alone. It seems an improvement in air quality shouldn't be expected anytime soon.

"Unless there is rain, there is no way human intervention can put out the fires," Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, the natural resources and environment minister in neighboring Malaysia, warned on Monday, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

 

 

Students walk along a street as they are released from school to return home earlier due to the haze in Jambi, Indonesia’s Jambi province, Tuesday. Indonesia has sent nearly 21,000 personnel to fight forest fires raging in its northern islands: photo by Antara Foto/Wahdi Setiawan/Reuters, 29 September 2015
 

Sun in Haze (Singapore): photo by aamanatullah,  24 September 2015

 

Muslim students pray for rain to put out the fires which enveloped the region at Palembang 1 senior high school in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia, on Thursday: photo by Feny Selly/Antara Foto/Reuters, 17 September 2015 

NOT your (Singapore): photo by katushau, 17 January 2015