Indonesia Arrests 72 in Forest Fire Arson Probe, Vows to Trace Corporate Money Behind the Blazes

Since Indonesian police announced 72 arrests Sunday in connection with fires burning across Borneo and Sumatra, the investigation has already moved past the people who lit the matches.

Mohammad Irhamni, director of special crimes at Indonesia's National Police Criminal Investigation Agency, said the 72 suspects are tied to 89 forest and land fire cases spanning five provinces on Borneo and four on Sumatra. Most are accused of burning land to clear it for plantations because it's cheaper than mechanical clearing, according to the Associated Press.

Irhamni said investigators are now tracing financial records to figure out whether companies bankrolled or ordered the burning. "We will not stop at the perpetrators on the ground," he told reporters in Jakarta Sunday. "We will determine who benefited from these activities and who was ultimately behind them."

Prasetyo Hadi, head of Indonesia's State Secretariat, said at least four companies in West Kalimantan province are already under investigation for allegedly using fire to clear land. If proven, those companies could lose their operating permits, he said.

President Prabowo Subianto flew to Central Kalimantan on Saturday, where more than 7,600 hectares have burned, and promised helicopters and water pumps to fight the blazes. "I hope we can control this soon," Prabowo said. "We have experienced worse forest and land fires in the past, and we were able to overcome them."

The stakes go beyond Indonesia's borders. Smoke from the fires has crossed into Malaysia, according to Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), reviving a haze problem that has strained regional relations for decades. Indonesia's Environment Ministry recorded more than 3,700 hot spots on Sunday alone, and BNPB chief Suharyanto said fire activity is intensifying in West, Central and South Kalimantan, where peatland fires are especially hard to extinguish and keep the haze lingering.

Suspects face fines and prison terms of up to 15 years, Irhamni said.

A pattern, not an isolated case

Indonesia isn't alone in tracing its fire season back to human hands rather than just heat and drought. French authorities have arrested 375 people since the start of summer in connection with wildfires, including 142 minors, according to Le Figaro. France's Interior Ministry estimates nine in ten wildfires in the country are human-caused, with roughly a third involving arson.

Greece has run a similar tally. Between July 29 and August 2, police there arrested 33 people, with 91% of cases involving criminal negligence and 9% intentional arson, according to Greek newspaper To Vima. Authorities also issued 22 fines totaling more than 70,000 euros for fire-code violations.

In the United States, prosecutors in Spokane County, Washington, doubled bail to $2 million this past Thursday for Aaron Forrest Farinacci, the man accused of setting the Old Trails Fire that destroyed roughly 700 buildings and forced 60,000 people to evacuate starting Aug. 1. Court documents reviewed by Fox News Digital allege Farinacci confessed to setting 25 fires since 2025 and built a delayed-ignition device after tracking weather apps for ideal burning conditions. He now faces additional first-degree arson charges tied to four other fires in the area.

None of this means climate and drought conditions are irrelevant. Indonesia's fires are being driven in part by an intensifying El Niño pattern and a prolonged dry season, according to BNPB, and dry brush plus wind is what turns a deliberately set fire into an uncontrollable one. The European Forest Fire Information System reported this week that fires have burned 465,000 hectares across Europe in 2026, with Spain hit hardest at 221,493 hectares, followed by France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Greece. That's well below last year's total of over a million hectares.

But the arrest numbers complicate any narrative that treats these fires purely as a climate story. Breitbart's coverage argues legacy media outlets routinely cite wildfires as climate evidence "without information on the actual human factors driving the fires, namely accidents and arson." The French Interior Ministry's own 90% figure for human-caused fires supports that specific point. Weather sets the conditions. People, in most documented cases here, still light the fire.

Indonesia's investigation is significant. If Irhamni's team can prove plantation companies financed the West Kalimantan fires, as Prasetyo Hadi's office is investigating, it would mark a rare instance of corporate accountability in a country where land-clearing fires have gone largely unpunished at the corporate level for decades. No charges against any company have been filed yet. The financial trail investigators described Sunday is still open.