When the Sky Turned Orange: What the 2015 Haze Taught Singapore

The National Stadium was supposed to be packed that Friday night. Instead, 55,000 ticket holders watched the SEA Games closing ceremony on television, their seats empty under a sky the colour of burnt clay. The Pollutant Standards Index had just crossed 300, a number that triggers the automatic cancellation of all outdoor events. My neighbour—an asthma patient in his seventies—kept his windows shut for the first time in 30 years and rationed his N95 masks like wartime rations. That was the week Singapore discovered that clean air is not a given; it is a negotiation.
We had grown up knowing the haze as a seasonal inconvenience, the price of living next to a giant archipelago where farmers still clear land with fire. Every June or September, a faint smell of charcoal would drift in, the horizon would soften, and we’d trade jokes about Jakarta barbecuing our air. But 2015 rewrote the joke into a crisis. PSI readings above 200 became routine for nearly two weeks. Schools suspended outdoor activities, then suspended classes entirely. Delivery riders taped plastic sheets over their helmets and kept working because “haze pay” was better than no pay. A photograph of the Marina Bay skyline, swallowed by sepia smog, made the front page of The Guardian under the headline “Singapore disappears.”
The science was simple enough: peat fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan, lit to clear land for palm oil and pulpwood plantations, released a cocktail of carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and microscopic particulate matter. The monsoon winds carried it 300 kilometres north. But the experience was visceral. Walking outside felt like inhaling the inside of a vacuum bag. Your eyes watered, your throat rasped, and every breath came with the faint metallic taste of burnt leaves. At the peak, the government distributed four million masks in three days—then ran out. Pharmacies rationed them; enterprising individuals resold boxes at ten times the retail price on Carousell. The same city that had once fined a man for importing chewing gum now had to ask its citizens not to hoard masks.
Yet the haze did more than irritate lungs; it rearranged politics. Singapore’s diplomats, usually measured to the point of politeness, issued a rare public rebuke, naming eight Indonesian companies whose concession maps overlapped with fire hotspots. Indonesia’s vice-president retorted that Singapore was “behaving like a child.” For 48 hours, the region’s most carefully curated relationship threatened to unravel on Twitter. Behind closed doors, however, both sides agreed to share satellite data in real time and to prosecute companies whose concessions burned. By 2016, Indonesia had ratified the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution—14 years after it was first signed.
Back home, the crisis became a crash course in atmospheric chemistry for ordinary citizens. We learned that PM2.5—particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres—can penetrate lung tissue and enter the bloodstream. We debated whether air purifiers costing $800 were better than taping HEPA filters to standing fans. We installed apps that sent push alerts when the PSI crossed 100, 200, 300. One start-up began selling subscription boxes of masks, eye drops and vitamin C. Another marketed “haze insurance” to outdoor event organisers. Even Grab drivers started rating passengers who insisted on keeping the windows down.
The changes stuck. Today, most households own at least one air purifier. Schools have built indoor sports halls so that physical education never stops. The government rolled out a five-year plan that included stricter transboundary haze laws, subsidised purifiers for low-income households, and a 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index forecast that looks almost as polished as the weather segment. When the haze returned in 2019, PSI readings stayed below 100, and the city kept functioning. Some attributed the improvement to wetter weather; others credited better enforcement in Indonesia. Either way, the masks stayed in drawers instead of on faces.
But the memory lingers in small, unexpected ways. I still hesitate before booking outdoor weddings in September. My mother keeps a box of N95s in the storeroom, next to the torchlights and the canned food. And every time the wind shifts south-westerly, I catch myself glancing at the sky, half expecting to see that dull orange glow creeping back in. The 2015 haze taught us that borders are permeable and air indifferent to sovereignty. It also reminded us that the most sophisticated city in Southeast Asia still depends on the choices made by a farmer with a matchstick 300 kilometres away. Until that changes, the masks will stay ready.