Not every year, but the bad years are arriving closer together. Southeast Asia's crisis-level haze seasons came 8 years apart from 2015 to 2023, then only 3 years apart from 2023 to 2026. And Indonesia's January to June 2026 fires burned 110% more area than the same months in 2023.
Part of our Haze and air quality by city guide.
In the first week of September 2026, a firefighter in West Kalimantan stood in the smoke and told a reporter what nobody wanted to hear. Conditions this year, he said, are worse than 2015.
2015 is the year every haze season since has been measured against. It took eight years for a season to come close again. The next one took three.
Key takeaways
- Indonesia's Jan-Jun 2026 forest fires ran 110% higher than the same period in 2023, with 200,000+ hectares burned nationally by early September, before August is even counted (ABC News, 2026-09-07).
- An AQI monitor in Pontianak recorded a reading above 900 during the same reporting trip, roughly three times the threshold that defines "hazardous" air (ABC News, 2026-09-07).
- The gap between Southeast Asia's crisis-level haze seasons has been shrinking: eight years from 2015 to 2023's return, then just three years from 2023 to 2026.
- Peer-reviewed climate research finds that anthropogenic warming is projected to increase the frequency of extreme ENSO events specifically, the same climate driver behind 2015, 2023 and 2026 (PMC synthesis).
The bad years are arriving closer together
Indonesia's January to June 2026 fires burned 110% more area than the same months in 2023. By early September, more than 200,000 hectares had burned nationally, before August's total was even counted (ABC News, 2026-09-07).
So 2026 is already worse on the ground than the year the region uses to define "bad." If you ride, the number to watch is the gap between these seasons, as well as how bad each one gets.
Three crisis years in eleven: 2015, 2023 and 2026
2015: the benchmark
A super El Niño dried out Indonesia's peatlands, and fires burned out of control for months. The haze exposed tens of millions of people across the region to toxic smoke, and more than 500,000 were treated for breathing problems (ABC News, 2026-09-07).
Every haze story written since uses 2015 as the yardstick.
2023: the return
For eight years nothing matched it. Then El Niño came back in 2023. Indonesian forest fires burned about 152,678 hectares in August alone, and the January to August total passed 250,000 hectares (Databoks/Katadata, Indonesian Ministry of Forestry data, 2023).
Bad, but reported at the time as "the worst since 2015." A callback, not a new baseline.
2026: worse than the benchmark
Three years later, 2026 had outpaced 2023's comparable period by 110%, with the dry season not finished. West Kalimantan firefighter Andri Susanto put it plainly: "Conditions in 2026 are indeed worse than in 2015" (ABC News, 2026-09-07).
A Pontianak health clinic reported haze-linked breathing patients roughly doubling on the year before. The attending doctor called it the worst year yet.
An AQI monitor at the same location read above 900, about three times the level that defines hazardous air.
Source: ABC News, 2026Read those three years end to end and the story gets specific. The time between "bad" and "worst on record" is getting shorter.
The gap between crisis-level haze seasons is shrinking
Years elapsed since the previous crisis-level haze season
Recorded gapIllustrative projection
| Crisis year | Gap since previous crisis (years) | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 8 (since 2015) | Recorded |
| 2026 | 3 (since 2023) | Recorded |
| ~2029 | ~2-3 (illustrative) | Projected, not measured |
Ride with filtered air
Filters haze PM2.5 on every ride
Easi Breezi mounts on your scooter or motorbike and feeds H11 HEPA-filtered air into your helmet. Bike-powered, no batteries, no charging.
Masks in a drawer were planned for a rare event
Buying masks before haze season and putting them away after makes sense for a rare problem. You put up with a bad fortnight every few years, then move on.
That only works if the bad weeks stay rare. The gap data above says they aren't staying rare.
Helmet vents can't tell haze from exhaust
The reason a passive vent fails hasn't changed. PM2.5 is 2.5 microns and smaller, and vent mesh and comfort foam are nowhere near fine enough to stop it. That's true whether it came from the tailpipe beside you or a peat fire a thousand kilometres away.
Vents also need forward motion to push any air through. Stop in traffic and the airflow collapses.
What has changed is how many days a year that failure matters. At an AQI above 900, three times the hazardous line, anything short of a sealed, actively driven filter does little. And the number of days that line gets crossed is trending up.
Why a passive vent can't tell haze smoke from tailpipe exhaust
Side view of a helmet vent, moving vs. stopped
Don't wait for someone to announce haze season. Check the live haze readings before you ride, because the next bad season may not keep to the old schedule.
If the gap keeps shrinking, expect another crisis before 2031
To be clear, this section is our own synthesis, not a sourced forecast. No agency has published a year for the next Southeast Asian haze crisis.
What we do have is two real inputs:
- The pattern. A long quiet stretch before 2015, another before 2023, then only three years to 2026. Responders on the ground already rate 2026 worse than 2015, with the fire season still running.
- The climate research. Peer-reviewed work finds that human-caused warming is projected to make extreme ENSO events more frequent, the same driver behind all three crisis years (PMC, "Synergies Between Observed Warming and ENSO Episodes on Extreme Events").
Put together, a fair planning assumption for a rider in Indonesia, Malaysia or the Philippines is at least one more crisis-level haze season before 2031, with a real chance of two. That holds if the 2023 to 2026 gap is closer to the new normal than the longer gaps before it.
It's a call about direction, not size. The research says extreme ENSO events are getting more frequent. It doesn't hand out a year.
So stocking up before haze season is a bet on timing that keeps getting harder to call. For more, read our piece on the 2026 haze season and helmet vents, our Singapore haze contingency guide, and our rider air pollution guide.
Filtering every ride takes the timing bet away
Easi Breezi filters the same way on every ride, in a quiet year or the next 2026. It uses an H11 HEPA filter that stops 95% of PM2.5, and a fan pushes the air instead of relying on forward speed.
That means it keeps working in a stopped queue, where ram-air vents go dead.
Frequently asked questions
Is haze getting worse every year in Southeast Asia?
Not every year, but the crisis-level years are coming closer together and hitting harder. 2026's January to June fires ran 110% above the same months in 2023, and responders in West Kalimantan already rate 2026 worse than 2015.
What years were Southeast Asia's worst haze crises?
2015 is the benchmark, a super El Niño year with over 500,000 people treated for breathing problems (ABC News, 2026-09-07). 2023 came eight years later, with about 152,678 hectares burned in August alone (Databoks/Katadata, 2023). 2026 followed three years after that, with more than 200,000 hectares burned by early September.
Will a crisis-level haze season happen every year now?
There's no evidence for that. The pattern is a shrinking gap between crisis years, and our planning assumption is at least one more before 2031, with a real chance of two. That's a synthesis of direction, not a published forecast.
Does a mask or a passive helmet vent still work during a severe haze event?
Fire PM2.5 passes vent mesh and mask gaps as easily as tailpipe PM2.5. Passive vents also need forward motion, so they stop moving air when you stop in traffic, which is often when levels peak.
How can riders plan for haze seasons that are harder to predict?
Treat the timing as unreliable instead of betting it won't happen this year. Filtering on every ride removes the need to guess when the next season lands.
What to do before the next season
- Stop planning around a haze season. The gap between crisis years went from eight years to three.
- Check a live AQI reading before you ride, not last week's news. Live haze readings
- Don't count on helmet vents. They pass PM2.5 and stop moving air when you stop.
- Filter the air your helmet delivers on every ride. See how Easi Breezi works.
- Keep spare filters on hand. A pack of replacement HEPA filters means you're ready before the next gap closes.
The gap went from eight years to three. You can't time the next season, but you can make the timing matter less.
Written by Ash, mechanical engineer and founder of Easi Breezi, building an active HEPA filtration system for motorcycle helmets (patent pending). Based between Hong Kong and Bali, riding daily in the traffic this blog writes about.