Women fight fires and sexism in Indonesian Borneo

Members of the all-women "The Power of Mama" volunteer firefighting team spray water onto smoldering peatland in the village of Tanjungpura, West Kalimantan, Borneo, on Sept. 26. | AFP-JIJI

AFP-Jiji

Sep 30, 2026

Ketapang, Indonesia – Housework in the morning followed by several hours of firefighting: women in Indonesian Borneo risk life and limb to battle blazes that are making their communities sick, all while shouldering a sexist backlash.

More than 100 women, many of them homemakers, are volunteer members of an initiative dubbed “Power of Mama,” patrolling daily for smoke and flames and jumping in to put out fires when needed.

Formed in 2022, the “Mamas,” as they call themselves, are spread over a dozen villages in the Ketapang regency of rural Kalimantan — the name for Indonesia’s part of Borneo.

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