In 2015, as South-East Asia was engulfed(吞没，淹没) in toxic smog caused by fires in Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla, the country’s vice-president at the time, suggested that his neighbours needed a change in perspective(视角，观点). “For 11 months they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us,” he said. South-East Asians flocked to(蜂拥而至) a satirical(讽刺的) website created to express gratitude to Indonesia. The site has registered more than 34m votes of sarcastic(讽刺的，挖苦的) thanks.
2015年，当东南亚被印尼火灾引发的有毒烟雾笼罩时，时任印尼副总统优素福·卡拉表示，邻国需要换个角度看问题。他说：“11个月来，他们享受着来自印尼的好空气，却从未感谢过我们。”东南亚民众纷纷涌向一个为表达对印尼感激之情而创建的讽刺网站。该网站已记录了超过3400万条讽刺性的感谢投票。
That number may soon grow. Fears of another severe haze(雾霾，薄雾) are rising as fires rage in Indonesia. Weather-watchers estimate that the number of blazes(火灾，火焰) detected across the island of Borneo in the first 12 days of August alone exceeds(超过，超出) the figure registered during the entire month in each of the past seven years (see chart). The smoke is already forcing officials to act. In Pontianak, the capital of the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, schools have shut. In neighbouring Sarawak, in Malaysia, officials urged people to stay indoors. Singapore has put its own responders on standby(待命，随时准备).
这个数字可能很快就会增长。随着印尼火灾肆虐，人们对再次出现严重雾霾的担忧正在加剧。天气观察人士估计，仅在8月的前12天，婆罗洲岛上探测到的火灾数量就超过了过去七年中每年整个月的记录（见图表）。烟雾已经迫使官员采取行动。在西加里曼丹省首府坤甸，学校已经停课。在邻近的马来西亚砂拉越，官员敦促人们留在室内。新加坡已让其应急人员待命。
Meteorologists(气象学家) fear that much worse is to come. El Niño(厄尔尼诺现象), a weather pattern associated with unusually warm waters in the Pacific, tends to cause drier conditions in the region. This increases the chance of fires, especially on Indonesia’s peatlands(泥炭地), where the carbon-rich soil is more combustible(易燃的) and where fires smouldering(阴燃的，闷烧的) underground are hard to extinguish. Many climatologists think that this year’s El Niño will turn out to be the strongest yet, raising concerns about a haze episode comparable to the one in 2015.(许多气候学家认为今年的厄尔尼诺将是最强的，引发对类似2015年雾霾事件的担忧。)
气象学家担心更糟的情况还在后头。厄尔尼诺现象是一种与太平洋异常温暖水域相关的天气模式，往往会导致该地区更加干燥。这增加了火灾的可能性，尤其是在印尼的泥炭地，那里的富碳土壤更易燃，而且地下阴燃的火灾难以扑灭。许多气候学家认为今年的厄尔尼诺现象将是有史以来最强的，这引发了人们对出现与2015年类似的雾霾事件的担忧。