Public discourse often follows a familiar pattern—reducing a complex issue to a simple narrative that portrays the palm oil industry as the primary cause of forest fires. These findings suggest that forest and land fires should be understood primarily as a governance issue rather than merely a technical firefighting challenge. The risks facing the palm oil industry today are substantially greater than they were a decade ago. Against this backdrop, portraying the plantation industry as solely responsible for forest and land fires oversimplifies a much broader governance challenge. Ultimately, when the dry season arrives, the country’s strongest defense against forest and land fires is not technology alone, nor bureaucracy.