Four firefighters are dead, and the neighbours' offers of help are still sitting there

Four people died on Thursday fighting a fire inside Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, and two others were badly burned. Indonesia's Forestry Ministry said the deaths are a reminder that putting out forest and land fires is high-risk work, and that safety has to come first. The park is on Java, a long way from Sumatra and Borneo, where most of the burning is. The same night, satellites counted 799 high-confidence hotspots across the country, 427 more than the day before. A high-confidence hotspot is a spot where the satellite is fairly sure it is seeing real fire on the ground, not cloud or glare.

Al Jazeera, reporting with AFP and Reuters, says President Prabowo Subianto has approved taking help from neighbouring countries. That help is still standing in the doorway. Malaysia offered helicopters, an aircraft and personnel last month, and Reuters reported that nothing followed. Singapore has also said it is ready to send support.

These are the worst fires Indonesia has had in more than a decade. Hundreds of thousands of people have breathing problems from the smoke, and schools have closed in Malaysia and in East Timor. The offers from abroad are no longer only a diplomatic gesture. They are helicopters that could be in the air above ground that is still burning.

Why it matters

Watch whether foreign crews and aircraft actually arrive, because an approval in Jakarta is not the same thing as help on the fire line. Every week of delay is another week of the same air for anyone with asthma, and for small children in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The people on the fire lines are now paying with their lives, which makes unused offers of equipment much harder to explain.