Indonesia will allow cloud seeding in its airspace in the latest bid to tackle the so-called choking haze blanketing the region.
Malaysian agencies were granted official permission to enter its airspace to conduct cloud seeding operations, Malaysia's environment minister said on Monday.
Indonesia has been stepping up efforts to slow the spread of haze caused by forest and land fires across several provinces, which this month led to dozens of school closures, including in neighbouring Malaysia.
Police on Sunday arrested 72 people suspected of starting some of the recent forest and peatland fires as huge blazes in central and western parts of the country triggered a harmful cloud known as a choking haze.
Malaysia's national disaster management agency and its meteorological department are preparing schedules for cloud seeding operations in shared border locations, to be coordinated with the Indonesian military, Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Arthur Joseph Kurup said in a statement.
Malaysia was also prepared to offer assistance to Indonesia in extinguishing fires, with any specific requests to be brought to cabinet for further action, Kurup said.
Kurup added the two countries would be escalating their firefighting and fire prevention programmes ahead of national holidays in the coming weeks, including the Malaysia Day celebrations in Sarawak state on September 16.
Sarawak, which borders Indonesia's Kalimantan province on Borneo island, has been worst hit by the haze.
Six districts in Sarawak recorded unhealthy air pollution index (API) readings on Monday, according to data released by the environment department. Unhealthy API levels were also recorded in eight other districts across four states on the Malaysian peninsula, the data showed.
Indonesia has been battling fires driven by an intensifying El Nino pattern and a prolonged dry season, generating dense smoke that crossed into Malaysia, according to Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency, or BNPB.
Fires are a regular problem in the country and often strain relations with neighbors.Plantation owners and traditional farmers often start fires to clear land for farming, said Mohammad Irhamni, director of special crimes at the National Police's Criminal Investigation Agency.
The western island of South Sumatra also battled fires, with more than 1,700 hot spots detected on Sunday, causing a choked haze cloud and reducing visibility to only 10 meters (33 feet) in some areas, the ministry said.
Cloud-seeding resumed over Kalimantan on Sunday, with 30 helicopters for water-bombing and aerial patrol missions, and another 22 helicopters covering Sumatra.Meanwhile, Malaysia has suffered severe smoke from the fires, with its eastern state of Sarawak among the hardest hit.
One district recorded "very unhealthy" air quality on Friday, while eight others posted unhealthy readings, prompting the closure of nearly 600 schools and affecting about 200,000 students, the Sarawak government said.
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