Vast forest fires in Indonesia spawn ecological disaster

Indonesia's $9 billion estimate of the damage caused by the fires excludes emissions. Research by the Center for International Forestry Research, or CIFOR, found that in 2012, forest fires in Riau province alone released between 1.5 billion and 2 billion tons of carbon emissions in just one week — up to 10 percent of Indonesia's total annual emissions, said Sofyan Kurnianto, a scientist with the group and the lead author of the study.