Indonesia has sealed off palm oil plantations operated by 64 companies over forest and peatland fires that have spread haze around the region, suspecting some of them of deliberately causing them, a government official said Wednesday.

Environment and Forestry Ministry official Jasmin Rahil Utomo said that of the total, 20 are foreign-invested companies, mostly from Malaysia and Singapore. Five of them been named as suspects as hotspots have been detected in their concessions.

[Anadolu Agency/Getty/Kyodo]

The fires have so far razed more than 328,700 hectares of land across the country, mostly on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

Central Kalimantan Province in Borneo and Riau Province in Sumatra have both declared a state of emergency over air pollution caused by the fires, while the haze has also affected Indonesia's neighbors Malaysia and Singapore.

Indonesia has intensified its efforts to put out the fires by deploying 45 helicopters to drop nearly 325 million liters of water and 251 tons of salt for cloud seeding.


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