File:Smoke from Indonesian fires over the Indian Ocean (MODIS 2015-11-07).jpg

English: Indonesia�s rainy season began in very late October 2015, with heavy rains falling across the region on October 27. This wet weather offered hope of dampening the peat fires which have been blanketing Indonesia with heavy smoke all summer. According to the New York Times, a spokesman for the National Agency for Disaster Management in Indonesia said that visibility and air quality had improved since October 26, and that the number of �hot spots� (areas indicating fires) had dropped from 1,578 on October 26 to 291 on October 28, due to heavy rains.

Although the fire activity appears to be diminishing, smoke from Indonesia�s fires continued to ride the atmosphere. On October 30 the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA�s Terra satellite captured this true-color image of a massive veil of smoke covering the Indian Ocean. The gray smoke appears to lie underneath the bright white clouds, and in some places it is so thick as to obscure the bright blue waters of the ocean from view.

It will take more than a day, and more than a week, of steady rain to dampen the fires which are burning in peatlands. Peat fires are exceptionally smoky and also are notoriously difficult to put out because burning peat can smolder underground for extended periods of time, even when fire suppression seems successful on an active fire. When the smoldering material is once again exposed to air, it will flame up again in active burning.

Most of these fires had been set deliberately at the beginning of the growing season, as part of the slash-and-burn technique of clearing forest for various crops, including palm oil. The fires are reported to have claimed over 2 million hectares of forest and have caused considerable health issues for those exposed to the smoke.