Singapore's daily PSI registered a reading of 66 as at 9pm last night, which is in the moderate range. This was higher than the reading of 55 (moderate) on Sunday and 41 (good) on Saturday.
The dry hazy conditions have caused some concern as Singapore gears up for the Sept 23-25 Formula One night race, and Palembang and co-host Jakarta prepare to host more than 6,000 athletes to the biennial SEA Games in November.
Malaysia has complained to Indonesia about the haze, which has caused air quality to drop in many areas.
The town of Tanjung Malim in Perak recorded the highest reading of 107 at 5pm yesterday, falling into the "unhealthy" range. Subang and Petaling Jaya had the lowest recorded visibility of 3km and 4km respectively at 4pm.
The Indonesian authorities have used cloud seeding to induce rain in a bid to cool temperatures and to prevent the fires from spreading.
The rainy season in Indonesia is not expected to start until late this month, according to weather officials.
The national disaster management agency is coordinating the efforts of the various local authorities as well as the Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), which are focused on South Sumatra province, about 400km away from Singapore.
On Sunday, South Sumatra was found to have 135 hot spots while Jambi province in central Sumatra had 30, BMKG data showed. The number of hot spots in West Kalimantan province has also been rising in the past week.
Jambi is the worst-hit by the haze because of its proximity to the hot spots in South Sumatra.
Last Friday, flights at its Sultan Thaha Syaifuddin airport could not take off until late afternoon because of poor visibility.
A minimum visibility level of 1.8km is required for landing and 1km for take-off, according to Mr Olan Simanjuntak, an information officer at the airport.
"We have had planes diverted to Pa-lembang airport because of the very bad haze here. Other planes were told not to fly here," said Mr Olan, who spoke to The Straits Times on the phone from Jambi.
Rain could be on the way.
"The haze is carried by the winds that are mainly northerly and north-easterly there. But now clouds have begun to form above South Sumatra, the northern part of Jambi, which according to our satellite images, have the potential to trigger rain," said Mr Kukuh Ribudiyanto, head of the extreme weather desk at BMKG.
Padang in West Sumatra province and Pekanbaru in Riau province have had intermittent rain in the past few days.
Every year, farmers and plantation companies clear their land for planting. But many of them often use the cheaper but illegal slash and burn method, which is the chief cause of haze. South Sumatra has many oil palm and rubber plantations.
Mr Mukri Priatna, head of advocacy at the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi), hailed the government's ongoing efforts to put out the fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
"But enforcing the laws against those who are responsible for the fires is most important to putting an end to this annual fire affair. Currently, a party responsible for starting a fire could get away easily". (TIM)
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