JAKARTA, Aug 11 (Reuters) - If rhetoric could douse fires, the haze that haunts Southeast Asia, endangering health, travel and tourism, would have disappeared in the late 1990s.

Thick smoke from major fires on Sumatra and Borneo islands in 1997 and 1998 spread to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, making thousands sick and costing regional economies $9 billion in damage to farming, transport and tourism.

Governments and environmental groups agreed something must be done. Speeches were made, international conferences called and proposals put forth to bring the situation under control.

But those came just as Southeast Asia was hit by an economic crisis, leaving limited will or resources to fight the fires or their root causes, especially when smoke levels fell anyway in the next few years.

This month the price of procrastination is being paid in peninsular Malaysia, much of which has been shrouded in thick smog. Asthma attacks have soared, tourists are holing up in their hotels, and some schools, ports and airports have closed.

The haze comes from burning by farmers, plantation owners, loggers and miners to clear land, mostly on Indonesia's Sumatra and on Borneo -- split among Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia.

The effects vary dramatically from year to year depending on winds and the severity and length of the dry seasons.

"The dry season this year has made the fire spread more," Yuri Thamrin, a spokesman at the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry, said on Thursday.

"Hotspots" is a term for the fires that reflects the use of satellites to locate them through the heat they generate.

While modern technology may make the fires easy to find, getting to them can be something else in sprawling Indonesia. There can be hundreds of fires at a given time, many far from major cities in terrain difficult to reach with heavy equipment.

The bulk of the fires seriously affecting Malaysia this month are in the swampy, remote regency of Rokan Hilir on Sumatra's east coast around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Malaysia.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

"The fire is happening in large areas. Firefighters have been trying to extinguish the fires but there are only 70 (firefighters) and that is far from enough," Hujito Susiswo, head of the environmental impact office in Rokan Hilir, told Reuters.

Seams of peat and coal add to the difficulties, often smoldering for months.

Asked why the government cannot simply halt slash-and-burn practices behind the fires, Susiswo said: "That is how people farm here for ages. It's difficult to stop."

Environmentalists and analysts say small farmers are often less of a factor than corporate-run plantations and other commercial operators.

"Burning the forest is the easiest and cheapest way to clear land used for plantations and to fertilise them ... People who burn the forest are workers paid by plantation owners," Farah Sofa, a director at Indonesia's leading environmentalist group Walhi, told Reuters.

While most burning is illegal, enforcing the law is difficult in a country of 220 million people with a poorly paid and relatively small police force and a culture of corruption.

"The law enforcement against cases is not serious enough. NGOs will report hotspots at land owned by company A, B, C, but there are uncertain follow-ups," said Nazir Foead, a director at the Indonesian operation of the conservation group WWF International.

Some analysts say Indonesia's neighbours bear part of the responsibility, and should help Jakarta finance the major law enforcement and firefighting effort needed to combat the problem.

They say Singapore and Malaysian owned plantation and logging operations are among those doing the burning, with executives and governments in the home countries turning a blind eye.

But a Malaysian plantation industry official said she had no knowledge of any burning conducted by Malaysian firms operating in Indonesia.

"Most of us have a zero-burning policy anyway," said the official, who declined to be identified. (Additional reporting by Ade Rina and Telly Nathalia in Jakarta)