Bornean and Sumatran orangutans face acute welfare crises during land-clearing fires for palm oil plantations. Fires kill orangutans directly and drive survivors into plantation areas where they face persecution, capture, or starvation.
Orangutans caught in land-clearing fires suffer burns and smoke inhalation that cause severe pain and death or chronic respiratory damage. Survivors driven into oil palm plantations face immediate conflict with workers who regard them as crop pests. Mothers killed in plantations leave orphaned infants that require years of intensive rehabilitation. The welfare harm from fire and conflict is acute, visible, and directly traceable to consumer demand for palm oil products.