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Forest fires threaten wildlife both during the flames and after they pass. Animals can be burned, displaced, or rescued; smoke can change activity and affect condition; and damaged habitat can mean less food and poorer shelter. A small study of four Bornean orangutans documented changes in activity and energy use during the 2015 fire period, while recent Indonesian rescue reports describe individual animals found injured or in distress. Those findings show credible risks, but they do not establish a population-wide death toll or measure how every wildlife species responds.

What happens to wildlife during a forest fire?

The effects unfold over different timescales. An animal near a fire may face immediate exposure to flames and smoke or need to move away from danger. Smoke can reach animals beyond the visible fire front. Later, a burned or degraded forest may offer less food, shelter, or usable habitat. These are related but distinct impacts: an animal can be affected without being burned, and a forest can remain harmful to wildlife after the flames are gone.

For orangutans, recent reports from Indonesia document individual rescues and injuries, while field research provides a closer look at behavioral and energetic changes associated with smoke. For other wildlife, the same broad pathways are relevant, but the evidence available here does not include comparable measurements for named non-orangutan species. It would be misleading to treat findings about orangutans as a measured result for birds, reptiles, amphibians, or other mammals.

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How fire, smoke, and habitat damage affect animals

Flames and immediate danger

Direct contact with fire can injure an animal or leave it stranded in a damaged area. Animals may also need to leave habitat as fire approaches, and people may intervene to move or rescue wildlife. A rescue report can establish what happened to a particular animal; by itself, it cannot show how often such incidents occur across a region or how many animals die without being found.

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Smoke and haze

Smoke is a separate exposure from flames. It can affect areas beyond the fire zone and may influence wildlife health, behavior, and daily activity. The clearest direct study evidence in this material concerns orangutan activity and energy use—not a clinical diagnosis of respiratory disease. That distinction matters: a study can demonstrate a change in behavior or biological indicators without establishing a specific illness or its prevalence.

Displacement and changing habitat

Fire can disrupt the places animals use for food and shelter, and it can change the routes available to move through a landscape. These pressures may continue after the fire itself. A 2026 update from the BOS Foundation describes fire impacts in the Mawas Conservation Area and says peatland fires can be hard to detect and extinguish because they may smolder below ground. The organization notes that fire can alter ecological functions, including food availability and habitat quality for orangutans and other wildlife.

Movement after a fire does not have one predictable pattern. A study record published in December 2025 for the Tuanan site reports that most observed orangutans decreased their home ranges after the 2019 fire, while one flanged male and one adult female expanded theirs. This is a finding about observed individuals at one site, not a rule that all orangutans—or wildlife generally—will move less or more after fire.

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What the orangutan smoke study found

Erb and colleagues published a peer-reviewed study in Scientific Reports on May 15, 2018, examining four adult flanged male Bornean orangutans at Tuanan Research Station in Central Kalimantan. Researchers collected behavioral observations and urine samples before, during, and after fires between March 2015 and January 2016. The sample was four males, so the results are a documented case study of changes in those animals, not an estimate of the effect on all wild orangutans.

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  • During and after the smoke period, the orangutans rested more.
  • They traveled less: researchers observed lower travel time and distance.
  • After the smoke period, urine indicators showed increased fat catabolism, meaning greater use of fat as an energy source.

The authors reported that the post-smoke increase in ketones was not explained by changes in caloric intake. They suggested it may have been associated with greater energy expenditure, possibly connected to an immune response. That proposed explanation is not the same as a confirmed cause. The study measured behavior and urinary indicators of energetics; it did not measure respiratory disease or establish a long-term population effect.

The study authors concluded: “Results show that wildfire smoke negatively affects orangutan condition, and sustained research is needed to assess the magnitude of the threat to the long-term viability of this Critically Endangered species.” Their conclusion conveys both the concern and the remaining uncertainty: smoke had measurable associations with condition in the observed animals, while the scale of the long-term threat requires further evidence.

What recent rescue reports do—and do not—show

Reports from 2026 illustrate how fire-related incidents can differ from one animal to another. On August 31, Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry reported that an adult male orangutan in weak condition had been evacuated the previous day from a community oil-palm area in Ketapang, West Kalimantan. The animal had been reported to a local wildlife rescue unit. The ministry described fire near the orangutan’s habitat and range as a concern for wildlife movement and condition.

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An Associated Press report dated October 10, 2026, described Novita, a young female orangutan found clinging to a nearly leafless tree amid smoke. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation’s chairman said she had burns on her hands and feet. The same report said Sampurna, a male orangutan found struggling to breathe in a fire-affected area, died hours after rescue, according to Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry. The account establishes the circumstances reported for these individuals; it does not quantify how common burns, breathing distress, or deaths are among orangutans in fires.

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The AP report also attributed to the Forestry Ministry a count of more than 270 wild animals in Kalimantan that had been rescued, rehabilitated, or guided to safer habitat as of October 10, 2026. This is a time- and place-specific response count across wild animals, not a count of all animals affected by fire, a mortality estimate, or a measure of the success of each intervention.

Why post-fire effects can last

A fire can alter habitat even where individual animals survive. If food availability or habitat quality changes, animals may need to use a different area or adapt their movement. The Tuanan home-range findings after the 2019 fire illustrate that individual responses can vary: most observed orangutans reduced their ranges, but two expanded theirs. The record does not establish why each individual changed its range, nor does it show how long those changes lasted or whether the same pattern occurs elsewhere.

Peatland fires add a particular challenge in the BOS Foundation’s account. Because peat fires may smolder below the surface, they can be difficult to detect and extinguish. This means visible flames do not necessarily capture the full extent or duration of fire activity. The foundation also notes that smoke and haze may travel beyond the fire area, so wildlife can be exposed without being inside a visibly burned patch.

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These habitat and smoke pathways should not be collapsed into a single measure. A count of burned hectares describes an area over a defined period; it does not directly say how many animals were exposed, injured, displaced, or able to return. Likewise, a rescue count documents response activity rather than the total scale of ecological impact.

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What is known about other wildlife?

Fire can put wildlife at risk through direct exposure, smoke, displacement, and changes to habitat and food availability. The BOS Foundation specifically describes effects on orangutans and other wildlife, but the sources summarized here do not give parallel measurements of injury, mortality, smoke exposure, or movement for particular non-orangutan species.

That gap matters because a forest contains animals with different needs and ways of using habitat. The orangutan study cannot be used as a numerical proxy for other mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians. Nor can individual rescue reports show which groups are most affected. A careful account can identify shared exposure pathways while leaving species-specific outcomes open where they have not been measured.

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How to read the 2026 burned-area figures

The Associated Press reported two estimates with different sources and reporting periods. They should not be added together or presented as competing measurements of precisely the same time window.

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Figure Source and period What it means
More than 202,000 hectares Indonesian government data, reported by the Associated Press, for January through July 2026 A government figure for the stated seven-month period.
Nearly 896,000 hectares Nusantara Atlas project estimate, reported by the Associated Press, through the end of August 2026 An independent project estimate covering a later period.

The difference reflects distinct attributions and time spans, not a basis for averaging the figures. Neither area estimate on its own establishes the number of animals affected or the share of burned land that was wildlife habitat.

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What prevention and response involve

Conservation responses address different stages of risk. Andi Muhammad Kadhafi, head of Central Kalimantan’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency, told the Associated Press: “Wildfires do not only affect humans but can also threaten wildlife and their habitats.” He said: “Fire prevention, habitat protection, monitoring and rapid response need to go hand in hand.” The actions are complementary: prevention aims to reduce fire risk, habitat protection preserves areas wildlife depends on, monitoring can help identify changing conditions, and rapid response can support animals in immediate danger.

The BOS Foundation’s September 2026 situation update describes local readiness and response, and reports that conditions varied by location: some facilities and release sites remained safe while Mawas had fire impacts. It also describes orangutans being evacuated from pre-release islands as low river levels weakened a natural barrier. This example shows that response decisions can depend on local conditions, not just the presence of smoke or flames. The update does not establish a single evacuation rule that applies to every site.

What the evidence can support

  • Well documented: the four male orangutans in the 2015-period study rested more, traveled less, and showed increased fat catabolism after the smoke period.
  • Documented as individual incidents: 2026 reports describe orangutans rescued in weak condition, with burns, or in breathing distress; one male died hours after rescue.
  • Supported as a habitat concern: conservation reporting describes fire impacts on food availability and habitat quality, including the difficulty of detecting and extinguishing smoldering peat fires.
  • Not established by these sources: a population-wide orangutan death toll, a quantified long-term effect across Borneo and Sumatra, or comparable impact measurements for other wildlife groups.

Forest fires therefore pose several connected risks to orangutans and wildlife, but the strength of evidence differs by question. The orangutan smoke study offers detailed measurements from a very small sample; rescue reports establish serious individual cases; and habitat updates describe ecological concerns. Together they make clear why fire matters to wildlife without turning those distinct forms of evidence into a single, unsupported estimate of population loss.

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