Geoff Spencer, Balikpapan – Five men, some with shoes, others barefoot, trudged up the smoky forest highway toward a wall of flames.
"We're here to put out the fire. The authorities gave us these," one said, proudly referring to a battered plastic water tank strapped to his back.
Until now, he explained, they had to beat flames out with tree branches.
This time, they walked about two miles from the nearest water hole to fill each four-gallon tank. When they finish dousing this fire, they will walk back, refill and hike to another blaze, he said.
Wildfires that poured choking smoke across much of Southeast Asia and threatened the health of an estimated 70 million people last year have returned to the jungles of Borneo island.
Indonesia's worried neighbors have demanded strong action. But bogged down in its worst economic crisis in three decades, Indonesia admits that without heavy rain it has almost no chance of preventing haze from spreading across the region again.
Most days, a heavy haze blankets the cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda, both about 745 miles north of Jakarta. Their airports have been closed much of the time since the first fires started in January.
Here the sun burns orange in a gray sky. Smoke fills the nose, irritates the throat and stings the eyes. Doctors warn of a dramatic increase in respiratory infections and asthma if the haze persists.
"We could face major health problems if it does not rain soon," said Dr. Jusuf, the head of a hospital in Samarinda.
The smoke is worst in two national parks that are home to rare species such as orangutan apes.
Scientists warn that together with drought, the haze could devastate harvests as it did last year when crops could not get enough sunshine to grow.
"The smoke has ruined my crop. Fruit from my trees is too small to sell," complains Kondo, a farmer who lives on the edge of the burning forest.
As last year, officials have said many of the fires appear to have been set, a cheap way for farmers, plantation owners and logging companies to clear land. Officials using satellite imaging count between 400 and 600 hotspots a day in eastern Borneo and dozens more in central Sumatra island. Fires have also been spotted in the Malaysian-controlled northern part of Borneo.
At this time of year, these locales should be green, lush and wet. But meteorologists say El Nino has cut short the rainy season, leaving jungles, farmland and commercial forest areas tinder-dry.
The government says about 22,000 acres of land have been blackened in Borneo. But Grant Beebe, a forest fire expert from Boise, Idaho, said the damage could be in the hundreds of thousands of acres.
Several hundred soldiers, firefighters and farmers are battling the fires with buckets or branches of trees, said Beebe, who works for a German-funded aid project monitoring the problem.
They haven't had much success, he said, but "it's an improvement on the past when people just let fires burn. At least now they know they should at least try to control them."
More sophisticated methods have also had little success.
When the fires first started in Borneo costly water bombing planes were sent up for a few days – to little effect.
The government then began a cloud-seeding operation in which a plane drops salt crystals into clouds to induce rain. But so far that also has failed.
Indonesia's neighbors seem resigned to another year of choking on Indonesia's smoke. In Singapore, the state-owned television advised people to get their air filters and face masks ready.
"Prepare early and well for the full impact of El Nino," viewers were warned this week.