PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia \u2013 The orang utan clings to the top of a mostly leafless tree in Indonesia\u2019s Borneo, as waves of thick smoke from the forest fires burning below waft over her.<\/p>\n
Nicknamed Novita, the ape shown in footage released by a conservation group is among dozens that have been rescued from wildfires burning across parts of Sumatra and Borneo in recent months.<\/p>\n
They include Bara, a male orang utan plucked from the haze on Oct 8, the authorities told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was found on top of a tree on razed land. The haze was quite thick in the area because fires were burning around there,\u201d Handi Nasoka, a local natural resources conservation agency official, said on Oct 9.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing the condition of the recently burnt lands… we didn\u2019t dare to gamble and assume he\u2019ll survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bara was \u201crelatively healthy, with minor burn injuries\u201d, Handi added, and will be moved to a nature reserve elsewhere in the Central Kalimantan region where he was rescued.<\/p>\n
Wildfires have piled pressure on the already endangered species and forced local groups to carry out high-stakes rescues of animals<\/span><\/a> suffering smoke inhalation and burns.<\/p>\n Novita, a female estimated to be three to four years old, remains in intensive care at the Nyaru Menteng rehabilitation centre in Indonesia\u2019s Palangkaraya after being rescued in September.<\/p>\n \u201cNovita is still receiving intensive care,\u201d Andi Muhammad Khadafi, head of the Central Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency, told reporters on Oct 8.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been told that the burns on her hands and feet are improving, although even after she recovers, she may not return 100% to how she was before she suffered the burns.<\/p>\n \u201cShe had to leave her habitat, and we had to rescue her, primarily because of the flames.\u201d<\/p>\n Novita was rescued by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, which has taken in several apes caught up in forest fires.<\/p>\n She was found clinging to a tree in late September and was tranquillised by a rescue team, who administered oxygen and intravenous fluids before moving her to the rehabilitation centre.<\/p>\n \u201cWe rescued her from an area that was burning. Before we reached her, she had to walk through the fire to get to the tree and climb it, so the soles of her feet and her toes were burnt,\u201d said the foundation\u2019s chief executive Jamartin Sihite.<\/p>\n Indonesia regularly battles wildfires during the dry season, which in Borneo typically peaks between July and September.<\/p>\n The fires have intensified in 2026 in part because of the El Nino weather phenomenon<\/span><\/a>, set to be one of the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago.<\/p>\n Indonesia\u2019s wildfires have forced local groups to carry out high-stakes rescues of animals suffering smoke inhalation and burns.<\/p>\n PHOTO: AFP<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n El Nino typically brings severe drought to Indonesia, but experts note that slash-and-burn practices and the drying of peatlands<\/span><\/a> have made previously resistant landscapes increasingly fire-prone.<\/p>\n Between January and July alone, more than 202,000ha of land were razed by fire, according to government figures that have not been updated since.<\/p>\n The Nusantara Atlas project, which uses satellite monitoring, estimated nearly 896,000ha \u2013 over five times the size of Greater London \u2013 had burned by the end of August.<\/p>\n The fires have created severe haze, with tens of thousands of cases of respiratory illnesses, and caused regional air pollution spikes in Singapore<\/span><\/a> and Malaysia. AFP<\/p>\n<\/picture><\/div>