Tropical peatlands are areas of high carbon density that are important in biosphere-atmosphere interactions. Indonesia has over 13.4 million hectares of environmentally-sensitive peatlands, which cover 12 percent of its forest land and are found across Indonesia’s four major Outer Islands - Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua. Drainage and burning of tropical peatlands releases about 5% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. There is great uncertainty in GHG Emission From  Peat Swamp Forest Fires estimates.

Accounting for all carbon pools aboveground, deadwood, pyrogenic carbon (PyC) and peat of single and repeatedly burnt peat forests to address konwledge gap has been done.  90 Mg C ha−1 remains aboveground as the deadwood carbon pool. Deadwood accounts for 50–60% of aboveground carbon in recently burnt peat forests. One fire produces 4.5 ± 0.6 Mg C ha−1 of PyC, with a second fire increasing this to 7.1 ± 0.8 Mg C ha−1. PyC accounts for 12% of aboveground carbon in repeatedly burnt peat forests. The impact of repeated fires on aboveground fuels and on the production of pyrogenic carbon need to consider to reduce uncertainty in emissions estimates.