The number of wildfires raging simultaneously in the Brazilian Amazon has not been this high in 15 years. On Monday, it went off at 3,358 different fires in a span of 24 hours, the national space research institute INPE reports. That’s almost three times as many as during the most devastating day in August 2019, when images of the burning rainforest went around the world.
The INPE has been tracking the number of wildfires in the world’s largest rainforest on a daily basis from space since 1998. It comes as no surprise to INPE boss Alberto Setzer that the highest number of fires since 2007 was reached this week. “The fires are moving further and further north,” he told the French news agency AFP.
A total of 5373 fires were seen on satellite images last month, an increase of 8 percent from July last year. This month, the Amazon is heading for “the worst August” since President Jair Bolsonaro took power (January 1, 2019), with 24,124 fires so far. During his reign, Bolsonaro invariably emphasized economic interests rather than nature conservation.
The forest fires often go hand in hand with deforestation. On August 10, 2019, when farmers in concert set fire to patches of rainforest, creating a thick cloud of black smoke that was seen 2,500 kilometers away in São Paulo, the world reacted with outrage. The many fires raging this week are not coordinated, according to Setzer, but simply the result of the increased number of illegal loggers.
Earlier this year, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) noted that significantly more rainforest is being cut down. The nature organization made a connection with the upcoming presidential elections in Brazil and with the war in Ukraine, which has brought Russian exports of various raw materials to a standstill. Brazil is trying to respond to that.
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