Forest and land fires (Karhutla) once again scorched more than 1 million hectares of land in Indonesia in 2023. According to data from SIPONGI (2023), a total of 1,161,193 hectares burned throughout the year.

The worsening scale of forest and land fires has raised many questions, particularly regarding the main drivers behind this surge. One emerging hypothesis is a possible link to the political climate ahead of the 2024 general election. Is it true that elections are a key trigger of large-scale fires? Let us take a closer look.

Based on data from the Forest and Land Fire Monitoring System (Sipongi) of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK), over the past decade (2013–2023), forest and land fires in Indonesia have burned 9,623,042 hectares of forest. Large-scale fire events exceeding 1 million hectares were recorded during election years—namely 2014, 2015, 2019, and 2023.

In 2014, coinciding with the presidential election between Jokowi–Jusuf Kalla and Prabowo–Hatta, forest and land fires burned 1,777,577 hectares. In 2015, which also marked simultaneous regional elections in various provinces, fires reached 2,611,411 hectares, making it one of the worst fire disasters in Indonesia’s history.

In 2019, during the presidential election between Jokowi–Ma’ruf Amin and Prabowo–Sandiaga Uno, fires consumed 1,649,258 hectares. Meanwhile, although 2023 was not an official election year, fires still burned 1,161,193 hectares. This has been linked by some observers to the increasingly heated political atmosphere in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.