The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon reached its highest level in almost 15 years on Monday, official figures showed, another sign of the destruction caused in the world’s largest rainforest. Satellite images detected 3,358 fires on Monday, August 22, the highest number in one day since September 2007, an official from the National Institute for Space Studies (INPE) confirmed on Thursday.
This figure is three times higher than that of August 10, 2019, known as “fire day”, when Brazilian farmers launched a large burning operation in the northeast of the country, which had spread to Sao Paulo, some 2,500 kilometers away, prompting international condemnation.
According to Alberto Setzer, head of INPE’s fire monitoring program, there is no evidence that Monday’s fires are coordinated. Rather, they are part of a general pattern of increasing deforestation.
63,764 fires in 2005
Experts attribute the fires in the Amazon to the action of farmers, ranchers and speculators, who illegally clear land by burning trees.
“The regions with the most fires are moving further and further north,” following a “growing arc of deforestation,” said Alberto Setzer.
The fire season in the Amazon usually begins in August, with the onset of the drought. This year, as of July, INPE detected 5,373 fires, 8% more than in the same month of 2021.
Since the beginning of this month, 24,124 fires have been registered, which should be the worst month of August since the beginning of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, although it is still far from August 2005 (63,764 fires detected, a record since 1998).
Jair Bolsonaro is criticized for his support for the destruction of the Amazon, for the benefit of agriculture. Since he came to power in January 2019, the average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75% compared to the previous decade.
Source: BFM TV
