Fire Burns Coral.

Wildfires in Indonesia were probably the culprit behind a massive die-off on distant reefs. Other papers also suggest that the global decline of coral reefs is more widespread and began much earlier than researchers once believed. Coral biologists know that human activities on land can threaten nearby reefs. Sometimes, these threats are exacerbated by natural trends, such as changing ocean currents that help spark harmful algal blooms in waters already loaded with nutrients washed from farm fields. The smoke apparently provided the nutrients needed to spark the red tide. In the Caribbean, hard corals have declined by 80% over the last 3 decades.