Endangered orangutans have been evacuated as a record number of forest fires continue to ravage Indonesia.
Last month, a wildfire broke out in Sungai Awan Kiri, around one kilometre from the YIARI orangutan rehabilitation centre. Staff were forced to relocate the 60 resident orangutans to new enclosures in the middle of the centre.
Rangers at the centre in West Kalimantan have also been making their way through the burning, smoking forestland to reach trapped animals displaced by the raging blazes.
Footage shows Wak, a wild male orangutan, being rescued from a high-risk area in Ketapang. He had left his natural forest habitat and moved into an area used by locals, after his forest home was affected by the fires.
Indonesia’s forestry ministry said that more than 107,000 hectares of land caught fire nationwide between January and June this year - twice the area burned in the entirety of 2023.
