-Australia to join Indonesia's wildfire

Australia will join Indonesia's waterbombing operations to help put out fires that have been raging for months, a government agency said on Thursday, a day after a helicopter crashed during a firefighting mission, killing three people.



Australia's New South Wales Rural Fire Service has dispatched a C-130 Hercules and a Cessna Citation aircraft to support Indonesia in firefighting operations from November 6 to 12, Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said in a statement



Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, Roderick Bruce Brazier, said the support includes a Large Air Tanker aircraft capable of dropping up to 15,000 litres of water per sortie, with with an estimated capacity of up to six sorties per day



Indonesia has been battling its most intense wildfires in 11 years, with large swathes of land scorched, mainly on the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Papua

An Indonesian waterbombing helicopter crashed on Wednesday in Central Kalimantan, killing three crew and injuring several others.