The scooter ahead of you at the Kerobokan lights has its exhaust at roughly the height of your chin, and the ridgeline beyond it has gone soft and brown.
Part of our Haze and air quality by city guide.
Yes, there is haze in Bali, but it is uneven: BMKG's 10-day forecast, read on 19 September 2026, codes haze or smoke on 30 of the 90 regency-days it covers, from 7 of 10 days in Badung (Canggu, Uluwatu) to 1 of 10 in Denpasar (BMKG).
Nobody publishes a plain reading of that split for someone deciding whether to ride today, so this post answers nine questions area by area and shows you how to re-check the answer yourself in 60 seconds. It is a forecast code, not a PM2.5 measurement, and we say so every time it matters.
If you want the why (Kalimantan smoke or local?), read our 26 August analysis. This post is the now: what is coded, where, and for how long.
Key takeaways
- BMKG's automated 10-day forecast for Bali, read on 19 September 2026, codes haze or smoke on 30 of 90 regency-days: 7 of 10 days in Badung (Canggu, Uluwatu) against 1 of 10 in Denpasar (BMKG). It is a forecast code, not a PM2.5 reading.
- BMKG's 18 to 24 September outlook puts Bali among the regions in the extreme dry-spell category, more than 60 consecutive days without rain, under a "very strong" El Niño (BMKG).
- Kalimantan's fire hotspots rose from 301 to 808 between 12 and 14 September (ASMC data via NST), but the smoke path ASMC documented for 2026 ran north toward Sarawak, and Bali's own Day of Silence cuts urban particulate by 73 to 78 per cent (Nuraini et al., 2019), which points to local sources.
- On Denpasar and Canggu roads, PM2.5 averaged 24.63 µg/m³ at 08:00 against the WHO 24-hour guideline of 15 µg/m³ (Dharmayasa et al., 2026).
Is there haze in Bali right now?
Not on Saturday in most places, but yes for the coming week, mainly in the south and west. On BMKG's forecast, none of the nine regencies carries a haze code on 19 September, and only Jembrana does on 20 and 21 September.
From Tuesday 22 September the codes arrive: Badung is coded hazy (Udara Kabur) on every day from 22 to 28 September, and Tabanan and Jembrana are coded hazy on seven of the ten days.
Two caveats before you plan around it. First, this is an automated forecast code, not a sensor reading, and the label Kabut/Asap (fog or smoke) merges the two. Second, BMKG's page carries no issue time and is updated over time, so treat everything below as a snapshot read on 19 September and check again.
Which parts of Bali are worst: Canggu, Ubud, Sanur, Uluwatu or Nusa Lembongan?
The south and west are worst, and the split is stark. Badung (Canggu, Kerobokan, Seminyak, Kuta, Uluwatu), Tabanan (Tanah Lot) and Jembrana (Negara, Medewi) are each coded hazy on 7 of 10 days.
Buleleng (Lovina, Singaraja) has 3. Gianyar (Ubud) and Bangli (Kintamani) have 2 each. Klungkung (Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Penida) and Denpasar (Sanur, the city) have 1 each. Karangasem (Amed, Mount Agung) has none.
The gap between Badung at 7 and its neighbour Denpasar at 1 may partly be an artefact of how the forecast is generated. The page does not let us say which, so we are not explaining it away.
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Is the haze in Bali coming from the Kalimantan and Sumatra fires?
Mostly no, although the fires are real. Kalimantan's hotspot count rose from 301 on Saturday 12 September to 461 on Sunday and 808 on Monday 14 September, according to ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) data reported by the New Straits Times.
Singapore then recorded unhealthy air in all five of its regions, the first time since September 2019, with Kalimantan smoke drifting toward it on a shift in winds (Free Malaysia Today).
That smoke travelled north. In the southwest monsoon, MetMalaysia says, winds blow from Indonesia toward Malaysia, and the pathway ASMC documented for 2026 ran from West Kalimantan to Sarawak, away from Bali, as set out in our earlier analysis.
Nothing we retrieved shows that smoke reaching Bali. Whether that changes when the winds turn is an open question, not a finding.
Then what is the smoke I can smell in Bali?
Mostly local combustion, and the best proof is a public holiday. On Nyepi, the Day of Silence, the island stops: no vehicles, no fires, the airport closed.
BMKG researchers measured total suspended particulate falling by 73 to 78 per cent in urban areas and about 59 per cent in the suburbs (Nuraini et al., Forum Geografi, 2019). Smoke blown in from another island would not observe a Hindu holiday.
Dry weather makes it worse. BMKG's 18 to 24 September outlook lists Bali among the southern regions in the extreme dry-spell category, more than 60 consecutive days without rain, under a "very strong" El Niño (BMKG). Rain is what normally scrubs particles out of the air, so a long dry spell lets whatever the island produces hang around.
Does Bali have a burning season, and is this 2015 again?
There is no official Bali burning-season calendar to cite, but this year sits inside a strong El Niño. ASMC, updated 21 August 2026, expects El Niño conditions to be strong in August and to keep strengthening until October to November 2026.
Models begin weakening it in January 2027, though still above the strong threshold, and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole is likely between August and December (ASMC).
The last comparable year is 2015, when the BBC reports 2.6 million hectares burned in Indonesia, about four and a half times the size of Bali; widespread fires returned in 2019 and 2023, though not to that extent (BBC live coverage). Those are national fire figures, not Bali air readings.
How long will the haze last in Bali?
Regionally into October; in Bali, until the rain returns, and no honest date exists. MetMalaysia says the regional haze is "expected to end only in October" and may ease when the northeast monsoon changes wind direction (NST).
In its passage on early October, BMKG's outlook singles out the west coasts of Aceh and North Sumatra for rainfall above 150 mm per ten days.
Will it get worse by 2031? No agency publishes a Bali PM2.5 projection, so this is our own synthesis, not a forecast. Dose is concentration times minutes exposed times breathing rate, and traffic growth lengthens trips even if the air stays the same.
On present trends, our 26 August analysis put a Canggu rider's 2031 dose at two to three times the 2026 figure on the identical route, for that reason alone. Treat it as reasoning from sourced inputs, not a measurement.
Is Bali's air bad enough to be dangerous to ride in?
On an ordinary dry-season morning it is already above the WHO guideline, so it is worth managing, but a forecast code is not a diagnosis.
In the peer-reviewed roadside series we rely on, PM2.5 at breathing height on Denpasar and Canggu roads, measured in the 2024 dry season, averaged 24.63 µg/m³ at 08:00 against the WHO 24-hour guideline of 15 µg/m³, and peaked at 99 µg/m³ (Dharmayasa et al., Jurnal Kesehatan Lingkungan, 2026).
If you have asthma, COPD or another respiratory condition, ask your doctor what to do on hazy days. A blog cannot tell you.
Will a visor, vents or a mask protect me while riding?
Visor and vents: no. A sealed mask: partly. Vent mesh is sized to stop gravel and insects, and PM2.5 passes through it untouched. Closing the visor changes the draught, not the dose. At a standstill vents get no ram air at all, and a queue at the lights is exactly when you sit beside the exhaust ahead.
A sealed N95 or KF94-class mask can work, but the ceiling is the seal against your face and helmet liner and how much heat you tolerate. The details are in our mask guide.
The category built for the standstill is active filtration. The Easi Breezi unit draws air through an H11 HEPA element (≥95% of PM2.5) using the vehicle's own power, so it keeps pulling when the bike is stopped. Patent pending.
How can I check Bali's air myself in 60 seconds?
Three checks, in this order. First, open BMKG's Bali forecast, find your regency and read the codes: Udara Kabur is hazy air, Kabut/Asap is fog or smoke.
Second, look at the nearest live sensor on a public map such as IQAir. Bali has very little regulatory-grade monitoring, so the nearest sensor may be a long way from your route.
Third, use the tell. Haze on the horizon at 08:00 that lifts by 13:00 fits the locally produced combustion trapped under an overnight inversion that the Denpasar measurements showed, whereas transboundary haze arrives as a flat multi-day elevation (Dharmayasa et al., 2026).
Ready to breathe cleaner where the smoke settles?
If the haze sits at the lights where you ride, the Easi Breezi unit is an active, vehicle-powered helmet air purifier built around an H11 HEPA element. See how it works at a standstill on the Easi Breezi product page, and find replacement filters in the 10x HEPA filter pack.
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.