PONTIANAK — Toiling around the clock, haggard Indonesian firefighters on Borneo island cannot keep up with the blazes devouring landscapes and shrouding communities in a cloying haze.

They are fighting a perilous battle with limited weapons against fires blamed in part on a stronger-than-usual episode of the El Nino climate phenomenon parching Southeast Asia.

Experts also blame climate change, decades of forest degradation and slash-and-burn land clearing practices that have changed the naturally fire-resistant landscape.

“We are exhausted. Sometimes we carry out firefighting until dawn. Sometimes we don’t sleep,” said Sampe Ritonga, fire chief for Sintang regency.

“Our facilities and infrastructure for firefighting are very limited,” he told AFP, standing on the smouldering embers of a peatland fire separated from a residential settlement by a narrow dirt road.

Behind him, veiled by the haze, the sun appeared as an eerie, rust-coloured ball in the brown-grey sky.

Sampe’s team only has two 6,000-litre fire engines, and deploys one at a time while the other refills. They also face a shortage of hoses.

The team has fought dozens of fires this month.

With river levels low, “we look for available water in ditches... (and) small rivers”, some far from active burn sites, Sampe said.

“So there are difficulties because they have to first carry out firefighting with high intensity, and second look for water,” he added.

“With the limitations we have, we try as hard as we can to extinguish the fires and also to reduce the smoke.”

Nearby, locals gathered to observe the team’s efforts, offering drinking water to first responders.

“There are many houses here, and that is what we have to protect,” said Sampe.