Residents complain of suffocating living conditions and alarming health risks as authorities try to contain the crisis.
image: AFP
In northern Thailand, the city of Chiang Mai is currently experiencing a state of extraordinary pollution caused by forest fires and agricultural slash-and-burn agriculture.
April 4, 2026, 10:08 p.mApril 4, 2026, 10:08 p.m
Chayanite ITTHIPONGMAETEE / afp
After spending several hours in the smog cloud that currently covers northern Thailand, Pon Doikam returns home and blows his nose. Traces of blood appear.
“It’s suffocating,” the coconut seller from Chiang Mai, the country’s second largest city, told the AFP news agency.
“You feel like you’re constantly trapped in smoke.”
Agricultural slash-and-burn agriculture, forest fires and the prevailing weather conditions in Southeast Asia regularly lead to an increase in pollutant levels at this time of year.
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But 36-year-old Pon says she has “never experienced a situation like this,” which makes it all the more difficult for her since she works outside all day. “I have no choice,” she sighs.
“I have to go out every day to make a living.”
This week, Chiang Mai repeatedly topped the list of the world’s most polluted cities on the observation platform IQAir. The situation is even more dramatic a little further west in Pai, a popular backpacker destination known for its lush vegetation and mountains.
Some sensors there registered PM2.5 values - a measure of dust particles that are fine enough to enter the bloodstream via the lungs – of over 900 micrograms per cubic meter. This is 60 times higher than the 24-hour average recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
While there is heavy traffic on the street, a passenger plane is preparing to land at the airport.
image: AFP
The region’s mountainous topography makes it doubly vulnerable: smoke accumulates easily and the forested slopes are difficult to access during fires.
Along the roads between Chiang Mai and Pai, numerous fires illuminate the landscape and plunge it into a ghostly darkness, as the smoke darkens the sky even in broad daylight.
“It’s so dark and foggy that you can’t see anything, and it’s been going on for far too long,” says volunteer firefighter Maitree Nuanja, standing in front of a field covered in ash.
“We now have to live with this smoke and breathe it in every day.”
“It’s frightening”
In Chiang Mai, authorities have set up hundreds of dust-free rooms equipped with air purifiers and pressure systems to prevent polluted air from entering.
For example, in the retirement home where Watwilai Chaiwan, an 82-year-old former nurse, lives. She no longer dares to leave the house for fear that it would make her dizzy spells and migraines worse.
“This is a real problem for older people. You have to wear a mask at all times.”
Some districts in Chiang Mai declared a state of natural disaster this week to release emergency funds.
But environmentalists expect more and are calling on the government to pass as quickly as possible a clean air law that was blocked last year due to the dissolution of parliament.
“A normal government would have taken care of air quality a long time ago.”
Canonny Sribuaiam
Kanongnij Sribuaiam, legal manager of the Thailand Clean Air Network, who introduced the bill that seeks to enforce the right to clean air, particularly through taxing polluters.
According to Dr. Thanakrit Im-iam from Chiang Mai, the long-term health consequences of pollution are devastating.
“Everyone is affected because toxins and heavy metals penetrate directly into the body.”
He mentions “burning eyes, mucous formation and nasal infections”. Pollution is also increasingly deterring tourists, who are nevertheless essential to the local economy.
“Chiang Mai is usually very crowded in March and April, but this year it is quiet.”
Chakkrawat Wichitchaisilp
From a vantage point overlooking the city, the buildings are almost completely hidden. Only a few hills can be glimpsed in the mist under a pale orange sun.
“It’s shocking,” complains Martin Astill, a 57-year-old British tourist who used to live in Thailand and remembers taking photos at this exact spot:
«The sky was a wonderful blue; you could see very far.”
(dal)