Thousands of fires....plus pollution at its worst

Witnessing, and experiencing pollution at its absolute worst is the lot of many people in a number of Asian nations - affected by burning off in Indonesia.

"Millions of acres of pristine, irreplaceable and invaluable Indonesian forest has been reduced to smouldering blackened ash, as 100,000 fires rage through the island region.

The sheer size and scale of the fire crisis is difficult to properly comprehend. Some of these fires have been burning since August, torching forest eons old and blanketing Papua, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and countless islands of Indonesia in thick grey hazy smoke.

The World Resources Institute reports a staggering 127,000 fires have been reported in the region in 2015, the majority sparking and taking off in recent months.

Earlier in October, Indonesia's Forestry Ministry reported 4.2 million acres of forest had been burnt out, a figure which is sure to have risen since first reported.

Carbon emissions from the fires, at their peak, surpassed emissions belched out by the entire United States of America. More than half a million people have reported respiratory problems.

Results on the Pollutant Standard Index have reached toward 2000, on a scale where a reading above 300 is considered "hazardous." The cost to the region's economy? A bill of $47 billion was considered conservative at the beginning of October."

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