(São Paulo) The governor of the state of São Paulo, in southeastern Brazil, announced on Monday that there were no more fires in the region where thousands of hectares of vegetation were ravaged last week.
“We did a morning reconnaissance and the remaining fires […] “have been extinguished,” Tarcisio de Freitas said in an interview with Globonews channel.
Some 2,700 fires have been reported since Thursday in this state of 44 million inhabitants, the most populated in Brazil.
Rain throughout the day on Sunday helped put out the fires, but firefighters remain mobilized “to prevent them from reigniting”, with weather forecasts predicting a return to dry weather in the coming days.
The governor estimated that about 20,000 hectares had been burned, particularly in the region of Ribeirão Preto, an important agricultural hub about 300 kilometers from São Paulo, the largest megacity in Latin America.
PHOTO MARCOS LIMONTI, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
A forest fire in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo state, Brazil, on August 25, 2024.
According to him, the damage is “difficult to estimate”, but it could “exceed one billion reais” (around 245 million Canadian), the flames having damaged crops and killed livestock.
More than 90% of these fires were caused by human actions, explained the Civil Defense of São Paulo in a press conference.
Three people suspected of starting arson attacks were arrested “red-handed,” the governor said.
On Sunday, Environment Minister Marina Silva said Brazil was “at war against fires and crime.”
Satellites from the Space Research Institute INPE have identified 3,483 homes in the state of São Paulo since the beginning of the month, more than double the total for the whole of 2023.
Several regions of Brazil have been experiencing exceptional drought for months, including the Amazon, home to the largest tropical forest on the planet, which has also been affected by fires.
This drought, linked according to experts and Brazilian authorities to climate change, contributes to the spread of these fires, which are mostly of criminal origin and linked to agricultural exploitation.