Indonesia's 2026 forest fires have turned the skies of Southeast Asia into a toxic blanket, and sales of oxygen tanks and air purifiers are spiking 600% from August to October. In Kuala Lumpur, AA Alive is pushing out 40 rental units a day, up from the usual 20, and its sales team reports a 35% jump in oxygen tank sales. The haze has closed schools and spurred a wave of respiratory complaints across the region.
Rafina Firdaus, a junior sales rep at AA Alive, says patients who once bought a single unit now need multiple units to survive the haze. "We see a 35% increase in sales because of the haze," she told AFP, noting that oxygen tanks now run just three hours per use.
Md Noor Bin Bujang, 69, spent a month in hospital before receiving his first oxygen concentrator on Thursday evening. He told AFP that without the device he would have struggled to breathe during the haze.
Technician Mubassar Khan reports that a concentrator filter's lifespan, normally 1,000 hours, has been halved by the haze's pollutants. This means households must replace filters twice as often, pushing up maintenance costs.
Environmental health professor Juliana Jalaludin warns that repeated haze exposure could raise respiratory disease rates among children and urges immediate indoor air quality measures. Health officials in Indonesia and Malaysia plan to issue new guidelines and consider subsidies for low‑income households.