Jakarta. Japanese helicopters will join in Indonesia's war against its wildfires this week, according to the disaster management agency BNPB.

Japan recently announced that it would back Indonesia’s firefighting operations at the latter’s request. The transport vessel JS Kunisaki departed for Indonesia in late August. Three CH-47 Chinook helicopters were on board.

Speaking to President Prabowo Subianto and other senior government officials, BNPB chief Suharyanto revealed that the Japanese helicopters would soon help extinguish the fires torching West Kalimantan's peatlands and forests.

“We will deploy the [Japanese helicopters] to West Kalimantan,” Suharyanto told the live-streamed conference on Monday.

Suharyanto said that the helicopters would reach Indonesia on Wednesday. His presentation slides, however, stated that the estimated time of arrival would fall on September 10 (Thursday).

Japan is expected to send 600 personnel to assist the relief mission.

BNPB so far has deployed 5 patrol and weather modification aircraft to West Kalimantan province, which is seeing its worst peatland fire in decades, according to BNPB. As many as 9 units are dropping large volumes of water into the region's hotspots.  

“We are operating 55 units across the six provinces that are now on fire. There are 19 helicopters for patrols and weather modification, while 36 others are focused on ‘water-bombing’ [the flames],” Suharyanto said.

“This should be enough if we deploy fewer aircraft to the less-affected areas.”

The burning provinces are West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, Riau, Jambi, and South Sumatera. West Kalimantan is the most affected out of the bunch. The operations will likely last until substantial, natural rain occurs at the end of October.

Only 9 units out of the entire fleet are coming from the Indonesian military and the Forestry Ministry. BNPB  has to rent dozens of others, which the agency described as “not cheap”. 

They are also battling the forest fires on a tight budget.

BNPB has had its annual budget slashed from Rp 2 trillion ($113.4 million) in 2025 to Rp 491 billion ($27.8 million) this year.

Speaking at the same conference, Prabowo had ordered a “significant hike” to the disaster mitigation budget.

The current wildfires have sent haze to Indonesia’s Southeast Asian neighbors, including Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Malaysia has just canceled the haze emergency in Sarawak state, although the government has told people to watch out for the remaining severely unhealthy levels of air pollution.

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