Recent satellite images show an ominous increase in forest fires in Indonesia, raising concerns in neighoring Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei that the choking blanket of smoke-borne pollution that covered much of the region in 1997 and early 1998 - disrupting tourism and transport and endangering public health - may soon return. Only this time, officials say, there is even less chance of Indonesia taking effective action to prevent the fires from starting, and to put them out when they do, because it is struggling to contain sectarian and sepratist conflicts in various parts of the country amid the worst economic and political crisis in more than 30 years.