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Peatland fires begin when an ignition source reaches peat that has dried enough to burn. Drought, drainage and lowered water tables remove the moisture that normally protects peat; a lightning strike, escaped fire or other human ignition can then start combustion. The most persistent fires do not behave like a conventional wall of flame. They smoulder—slowly and often without visible flame—inside the organic soil.
That hidden fire is why extinguishing peat is unusually difficult. The active front can sit below the surface, draw oxygen through pores in the ground, dry and preheat adjacent peat, and survive water that only wets the top layer. Fire crews must locate the burning depth, deliver enough cooling or moisture to it, and monitor the area long enough to prevent rekindling.
What peatland fires actually burn
Peat is an accumulation of partially decomposed plant material formed in waterlogged conditions. Saturated peat contains too little available oxygen and too much water for sustained combustion, so an intact, wet bog or swamp is relatively resistant to fire. The hazard changes when the peat dries.
Lowering the water table exposes a larger volume of organic soil to air. Prolonged drought can do this naturally; drainage ditches, canals, roads and land conversion can do it artificially. Once the upper peat is dry, it becomes a continuous fuel bed beneath vegetation and surface litter. Dryness is the enabling condition, not an explanation of ignition by itself: a spark, flame, hot machinery, lightning or another heat source must still reach the fuel.
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Fire behavior therefore depends on two separate questions:
- What supplies the initial heat? Ignition patterns vary by region and event. Human activities and natural events can both provide it, and the available evidence does not support a single worldwide percentage for either source.
- What lets the fire continue? Low moisture, oxygen pathways in porous peat and enough retained heat allow a smouldering reaction to establish and spread.
Forest Research identifies ignition exposure together with dry organic soils as wildfire-risk conditions. Studies of Southeast Asian peatlands likewise connect land use and drainage with drying. Those relationships describe risk factors, not a universal cause for every peat fire. Forest Research’s wildfire overview provides the agency’s current explanation of these conditions.
How a peat fire develops underground
Ignition can be small
A peat fire may start at a spot where a flame, ember or lightning strike heats dry surface material. Unlike a fast-moving grass or crown fire, the initial event does not need to create a large flame front. A localized hot zone can transfer heat downward and sideways into dry peat.
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Smouldering replaces flaming
Smouldering is a flameless oxidation reaction in a solid fuel. It releases heat more slowly and at lower temperatures than flaming combustion, but it can remain active inside the soil. The reaction front consumes organic material while nearby peat is heated and dried. Porosity allows air to move through the ground, supplying oxygen below the surface.
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The front can advance laterally or downward while the surface looks only lightly scorched. Smoke may be intermittent, and a visible flame may disappear even though hot peat remains. Natural Resources Canada describes this behavior succinctly: “Smouldering ground fires burn slowly in deep organic layers and can be difficult to extinguish.” Its fire-behaviour guidance places these fires in the deep organic layer rather than treating the surface as the whole fire.
Why slow does not mean harmless
A smouldering front may move only a short distance over a day yet continue for weeks or months. It can consume large volumes of below-ground carbon and damage roots, fungi, seeds and other organisms in the peat profile. The resulting cavity or weakened layer can also undermine vegetation and make later surface fire more likely. Because the fire is hidden, the area that must be checked is often larger than the visibly burned patch.
Why peatland fires are so difficult to put out
The burning layer is hard to see and reach
Surface flame, smoke and ash reveal only part of the fire. Heat can remain several centimetres below ground, under an apparently wet crust or beyond the edge of visible damage. Locating hotspots requires repeated inspection, probing, thermal measurements or other professional monitoring; a single walk-through immediately after water application cannot establish that the peat is cold throughout.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteOxygen can reach the fire through the soil
Peat is a porous medium. Even when the surface is damp, connected pores and cracks may continue to carry oxygen to a subsurface reaction zone. The fire itself dries and preheats neighboring peat, creating a path for the front to spread. This combination—an insulated underground location and continuing air supply—lets smouldering persist after surface flames have gone.
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Surface wetting may not cool deep hotspots
Water suppresses smouldering by absorbing heat and raising peat moisture until the reaction cannot sustain itself. But water applied from above may run off, follow preferential channels or stop in a shallow layer. If the burning peat lies deeper, the top can feel cool while a hot zone remains below. Forest Research notes that “Smouldering peat fires are hard to extinguish and can re-kindle frequently.” The warning is practical: extinguishment means cooling the active layer and checking for renewed heating, not merely making the surface look wet.
Rekindling is a normal failure mode
Rain or a first suppression pass can reduce smoke without eliminating every hotspot. As the area dries, residual heat can restart smouldering and produce smoke or flame later. Wind, falling water levels and nearby dry peat can then enlarge the problem. This is why suppression is a prolonged landscape operation rather than a single attack.
What field and laboratory measurements show
Numbers from experiments illustrate the mechanisms but are not universal firefighting thresholds.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →- In the 2022 GAMBUT field experiment on a degraded peatland in Sumatra, researchers recorded lethal fire severity to the peat biological system as deep as 30 centimetres. The result applies to that site and experiment; it is not a global depth limit.
- The same experiment reported that deep-smouldering temperature was 13% hotter than the shallow layer during daytime measurements. A shallow surface reading can therefore understate the heat at depth.
- A 2021 review describes a laboratory rainfall study in which 4 millimetres per hour for at least five hours was required for suppression under that study’s setup. That rate and duration should not be converted into a field prescription for every peatland.
- A 2026 controlled laboratory study compared water, ice, dry ice and liquid nitrogen. For air-dried peat at about 10% moisture, it reported a minimum of 41 kilograms per square metre of dry ice and up to 175 minutes of effective cooling in its tests; its abstract reported about 90 kilograms per square metre of water for comparable suppression in that condition. These are experimental quantities, not instructions for operational crews. The study also found that liquid nitrogen cooled rapidly but could be followed by temperature rebound, while dry ice performed best in those tests.
The field experiment is documented by Santoso and colleagues’ GAMBUT study. The rainfall work appears in the 2021 suppression study, and the controlled-agent comparison in the 2026 Fire Safety Journal article.
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How professionals suppress a peat fire
No single method works everywhere. Choice depends on peat depth, fire extent, water supply, terrain, access, equipment and the ability to monitor the site afterward. The main approaches address different parts of the problem.
| Method | What it does | Subsurface reach and resources | Limits and evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water spray or injection | Cools the reaction zone and raises peat moisture. | Can reach deeper layers when delivered through injection or sustained flow; requires a dependable water source, pumps, hoses and access. | Surface spray can miss hotspots; flow must be sufficient and maintained. Field and laboratory evidence show that delivery conditions matter. |
| Reflooding or rewetting | Raises the water table and saturates a broader area, reducing oxygen access and available dry fuel. | May address landscape-scale drying, but needs large water volumes, canals or other infrastructure and time to keep levels high. | Logistically difficult during drought; water can be unevenly distributed and the method may not stop a deep hotspot immediately. |
| Peat removal and trenches | Removes fuel or creates a break that interrupts lateral spread. | Requires excavators or comparable machinery, spoil handling and safe access. | Deep trenches are difficult to dig in wet or remote ground and can disturb the ecosystem; they isolate fire rather than cool every burning pocket. |
| Compaction | Compresses peat, reducing pore space and oxygen movement. | Needs suitable heavy machinery and terrain that can bear it. | Access, ground damage and incomplete compaction can limit effectiveness; it is not a universal replacement for water. |
| Ice, dry ice or cryogenic agents | Extracts heat rapidly under controlled conditions. | Requires specialized material, transport and delivery equipment. | The 2026 comparisons are laboratory results, not broad field validation or consumer firefighting advice. |
A review of suppression practice discusses water spray and injection, reflooding, peat removal for trenches and compaction, while emphasizing that site conditions determine success. Its published study also shows why water quantity alone is an incomplete description: flow rate, wetting, peat structure and the depth of the front all affect the result.
Why suppression usually requires several passes
- Map the hazard. Crews identify smoke vents, warm ground, cracks, burned edges and the likely depth of dry peat. The apparent perimeter is not assumed to equal the active perimeter.
- Reach the reaction zone. Water is applied where it can infiltrate or be injected into the burning layer. Merely flooding a thin surface crust is insufficient if heat remains below it.
- Control spread. Trenches, removal of dry peat, compaction or targeted wetting may be used to stop lateral movement while hotspots are cooled.
- Maintain moisture or water levels. Reflooding and rewetting can reduce oxygen supply over a wider area, but they require sustained delivery rather than a one-time application.
- Monitor for rekindling. Crews revisit and remeasure the site after apparent extinguishment, especially during drying weather. Any returning heat or smoke is treated as evidence that the suppression boundary or depth was incomplete.
This sequence is a description of operational logic, not a do-it-yourself procedure. Underground peat fires can collapse ground, produce hazardous smoke and extend beyond visible signs; incident response belongs to trained fire and land-management authorities.
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Prevention: keep peat wet and reduce ignition exposure
Protect the water table
The most direct risk reduction is to prevent peat from becoming fuel. Avoiding unnecessary drainage, blocking or redesigning canals where appropriate, and restoring water levels can keep more of the profile saturated. Rewetting projects have been adopted in some regions, but they can require substantial labor, engineering and maintenance. Prolonged drought can still lower water levels or overwhelm a local intervention, so rewetting reduces risk rather than guaranteeing immunity.
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Limit opportunities for ignition
During dry periods, restricting open burning, controlling hot work and machinery, managing access and enforcing fire-safety rules around dry peat reduce the chance that a heat source reaches the fuel. The exact controls depend on local law, land use and seasonal conditions. Prevention must address both sides of the equation: a wet peatland is harder to ignite, and fewer ignition sources mean fewer chances for a dry patch to catch.
Plan for detection and access
Land managers can map drainage, identify high-risk dry zones, maintain water-control infrastructure and establish routes for crews and equipment before a fire starts. Early detection matters because a small subsurface front is easier to isolate and saturate than a large, interconnected burn. Monitoring plans should continue after visible smoke disappears.
What the evidence does—and does not—establish
The evidence supports a clear physical explanation: drying creates vulnerability; ignition starts combustion; smouldering can move through porous peat below ground; and successful suppression requires enough cooling or moisture at the active depth, followed by monitoring. It does not establish one global ignition-cause breakdown, one universal water volume, or one best suppression method for every landscape.
The GAMBUT observations come from a degraded Sumatran peatland field experiment. The rainfall and agent-comparison results come from controlled laboratory or study-specific conditions. A 2026 paper on buried heat pipes proposes an underground firebreak concept and reports controlled experiments, but it is not broad operational proof. Treating these results as context-specific prevents a precise-looking number from becoming unsafe general advice. The concept is discussed in the buried-heat-pipe study.
Key takeaway
Peatland fires are difficult to extinguish because the real fire may be a cool-looking, oxygen-fed smouldering front inside the ground. Drought and drainage make peat combustible; heat then travels through and dries neighboring organic soil. Putting the fire out means reaching that hidden layer, delivering enough sustained cooling or moisture, limiting spread and checking repeatedly for rekindling. Maintaining wet peat and reducing ignition exposure are therefore more reliable strategies than waiting to fight a large underground fire.
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