Rain brings temporary relief as Southeast Asia battles fires and toxic haze

■ Steady

Months of Indonesian fires blanket Southeast Asia in haze; fires spread across New Guinea

On Thursday NASA reported unusually high fire emissions on both sides of New Guinea, where human-set fires are spreading through drought-parched land. Earlier, on Tuesday, the BBC reported from Borneo that months of fires in Indonesia have covered Southeast Asia in haze and made hundreds of thousands of people sick.

• NASA reports unusually high fire emissions across New Guinea.
• The fires there are human-set and are burning in a landscape parched by drought.
• Haze from Indonesian fires has sickened hundreds of thousands of people, the BBC reports.