page_title: 2015 Southeast Asian haze
section_title: Singapore
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Southeast Asian haze / Countries affected / Singapore
caption_attribution_description: English: Haze on Orchard Road in early September 2015
context_page_description: The 2015 Southeast Asian haze was an air pollution crisis affecting several countries in Southeast Asia, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines.
  The haze affected Indonesia from at least late June, to the end of October, turning into an international problem for other countries in September. It was the latest occurrence of the Southeast Asian haze, a long-term issue that occurs in varying intensity during every dry season in the region. It was caused by forest fires resulting from illegal slash-and-burn practices, principally on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, which then spread quickly in the dry season.
  On 4 September 2015, the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management stated that six Indonesian provinces had declared a state of emergency due to the haze; these were Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan. On 14 September, a state of emergency was again declared in Riau, this time by the Indonesian government. Thousands of residents of Pekanbaru, Riau's capital, fled to the nearby cities of Medan and Padang.
context_section_description: Some outdoor activities in Singapore were postponed following the haze. It was a concern in the week leading up to the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix as the event could have come under threat of haze. The haze rose into the "very unhealthy" range of the Pollutant Standards Index on 14 September, with a reading of 223 at 8 p.m. It rose further to 249 at 9 p.m. before dropping back to the "unhealthy" range for the rest of the night. Thunderstorms and rain had improved the situation in the afternoons of the 15th and 16th, while a change in prevailing wind direction improved the situation from the 20th to the 22nd.
  The haze deteriorated again on the evening of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th as denser haze from Sumatra was blown into the country by prevailing southerly winds. On 24 September, the PSI reading at 7 p.m. rose into the "hazardous" range for the first time in 2015 with a reading of 313. It rose further to 317 at 8 p.m., which prompted the Ministry of Education (MOE) to close all primary and secondary schools on the 25th due to the worsening haze conditions. The haze deteriorated further during the small hours, reaching a record high for the year at 5 a.m. with a reading of 341. However, the 3-hour PSI quickly fell back into the "moderate" range at 1 p.m. the next day. The PSI had been hovering at the unhealthy range from the late afternoon to the evening, and the MOE announced schools to reopen on 28 September 2015. Since that day, PSI levels have remained at the unhealthy range, even rising up to very unhealthy on a few occasions.
  On 24 September 2015, Ministry of Manpower (MOM) lodged a police report over a hoax post on social media (WhatsApp and Facebook) that claimed it had declared a "voluntary non-work day" on Friday, 25 September 2015 as a result of the haze.
  On 25 September 2015, the government, for the first time, named five firms: Asia Pulp and Paper, Rimba Hutani Mas, Sebangun Bumi Andalas Wood Industries, Bumi Sriwijaya Sentosa and Wachyuni Mandira as responsible for the haze and instructed them to take measures to extinguish fires on their land, not to start new ones, and to submit action plans on how they would prevent future fires. The Minister for the Environment and Water Resources stressed that the haze was a man-made problem that should not be tolerated. Under Singapore's Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, those guilty can be fined up to $100,000 a day, capped at $2 million, for causing unhealthy haze.
  Some of the 2015 FINA Swimming World Cup's events on 3 October 2015 were cancelled as the PSI was in the 'unhealthy' range.
  On 19 October 2015, the 1-hour PM2.5 concentration reached a record high of 471μg/m³ for the West region at 11 p.m., while the South region was at 301μg/m³ . This was a sharp increase as the highest 1-hour PM2.5 concentration in Singapore at 9 p.m. was 164μg/m³ . The National Environment Agency attributed this to "denser haze from the sea areas south of Singapore being blown in by the prevailing south-south=easterly winds".
  Thunderstorms in the morning of 28 October 2015 brought respite from the haze when the PSI dropped from 61 to 26 at 9 a.m.
  The National Environment Agency (NEA) announced that they would stop issuing daily haze advisories from 15 November 2015 onwards.
  The 2015 haze crisis in Singapore was considered as the most serious haze episode for Singapore as it lasted for a long time. It was also the first time the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) deployed a Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) Chinook helicopter and 34 SAF personnel to help fight the ongoing forest fires in Sumatra, Indonesia.
caption: Hazy conditions in Orchard, Singapore during early September 2015
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