PANGANDARAN — As haze from Indonesia’s forest fires drifts into parts of Malaysia and Singapore, the Indonesian military says it is throwing everything it has at the problem — soldiers on the ground, wells in the earth, and helicopters in the sky.

Army chief-of-staff General Maruli Simanjuntak told Singapore-based news outlet CNA that President Prabowo Subianto has taken direct charge of coordinating the response, pushing the military to move faster and work more effectively as fires continue to rage across Kalimantan and Sumatra.

“The president has repeatedly led efforts on this directly, asking how we can all move more effectively to address the haze and ensure irrigation and water supplies are available,” Maruli said in the interview published today.

Wells are now central to the strategy. The army has drilled more than 400 water points specifically to fight forest and land fires, part of a broader clean-water infrastructure push that has expanded rapidly since Prabowo threw his weight behind it.

Before that support arrived, progress was slow. 

Maruli recalled struggling to secure funding for water projects during an earlier posting commanding forces across Bali and the Nusa Tenggara islands, managing barely 50 water points a year by seeking out donors himself.

“More recently, we received the president’s full support… and he will continue supporting us,” he said.