Brazil battles massive wildfires fueled by drought

These fires, of criminal origin or linked to agricultural activity, according to the authorities, are spreading rapidly due to extreme weather conditions.

In Brazil, tens of thousands of fires continue to threaten major cities, such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Fueled by the worst drought ever recorded in the country, the wildfires are still evolving, Saturday, September 14, in key natural areas for biodiversity such as the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Pantanal. “The federal government, in cooperation with state and municipal governments, is working to combat the fires.”President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrote on the Bluesky social network on Friday evening.

While the authorities believe that these fires are of criminal origin or linked to agricultural activity, President Lula called on the population to denounce those responsible, the government having announced on Wednesday a strengthening of sanctions.

Based on data collected by satellites, the National Institute of Space Investigations recorded 49,266 fires in the territory during the first 12 days of September, already more than the number recorded for the whole month of September 2023 (46,486). As of midnight on Thursday, 60.7% of the fires recorded in September in South America were burning in Brazil, according to the same source.

These tens of thousands of outbreaks are spreading all the more easily as Brazil is experiencing its worst drought on record. Human-induced climate change is facilitating extreme weather conditions such as droughts and heat waves, which are conducive to the spread of large fires. The number and intensity of extreme wildfires, the most destructive and polluting, more than doubled worldwide between 2003 and 2023, according to a new study published in June in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Fires that, in turn, emit greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. In less than two weeks in September, Brazil emitted four megatons (four million tons) of carbon dioxide, Mark Parrington of the European Copernicus Observatory told AFP. Worldwide, the fires generated between 10 and 15 megatons of CO2 in total, he added.

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