While millions of people celebrated the country's 61st Independence Day on Thursday, firefighters were busy battling flames in Central Kalimantan.

Firefighter Aliansyah said it was worth missing the holiday so that he and around 200 others in the province could try to contain the blazes, which reached the capital, Palangkaraya.

"The celebration will go on with or without me," the 42-year-old said. "But if I fail to put out the flames, the whole province will have to put up with haze for months until the rainy season comes."

Firefighters have been battling the blazes, which have ravaged some 25 hectares of peatland on the outskirts of Palangkaraya, since Monday.

The firefighters were pessimistic they would be able to contain the flames, saying they had insufficient personnel for the task.

"It will take one hour just to extinguish fires destroying 100 square meters of forest. When will all the blazes stop if only 12 men are fighting the flames?" he said.

The Forestry Ministry's satellite images have detected more than 3,500 "hot spots" in Sumatra and Borneo, including in the Malaysian areas of Borneo, Sabah and Serawak.

Riau and Jambi provinces have the most hot spots in Sumatra, with each recording more than 300. West and Central Kalimantan are the hardest-hit in Borneo, with almost 2,000 and over 500 hot spots, respectively.

The Forestry Ministry's Central Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Office (BKSDA) reported Wednesday that hot spots were increasing in nearly all of the 13 municipalities in Central Kalimantan. It said visibility had been reduced to between 50 and 100 meters in the morning.

The lack of human resources is not the only problem. Due to a prolonged drought, firefighters are having problems finding enough water to extinguish the blazes.

"Many waterways here are dry, or contain only a small amount of water. That's why it takes so long for us to put out the fires," Nandang, another fire fighter, said.

Andreas Dodi Permana, a data analyst with BKSDA, said more than 90 percent of the fires were on privately owned land, while the rest were on concessionaire plantations.

Dodi said the regional administration hesitated to take legal action against perpetrators due to the absence of regulations and the difficulty of proving responsibility.

Kalimantan farmers prefer to set fires to clear land for planting, rather than hire people to cut bushes and trees.

"Rather than pay Rp 50,000 (about 60 U.S. cents) for one worker per day to clear their land, they prefer to buy a gallon of gasoline, because burning wood is much quicker," he said.