Amazon wildfires: Brazil reports record surge in forest fires

Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil’s space research center INPE , as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro ’s environmental policy.

The surge marks an 83% increase over the same period of 2018 , the agency said on Tuesday, and is the highest since records began in 2013 .

Since Thursday, INPE said satellite images spotted 9,507 new forest fires in the country, mostly in the Amazon basin , home to the world’s largest tropical forest seen as vital to countering global warming .

Images show the northernmost state of Roraima covered in dark smoke. Amazonas declared an emergency in the south of the state and in its capital Manaus on August 9 . Acre , on the border with Peru , has been on environmental alert since Friday due to the fires.

Wildfires have increased in Mato Grosso and Para , two states where Brazil’s agricultural frontier has pushed into the Amazon basin and spurred deforestation . Wildfires are common in the dry season but are also deliberately set by farmers illegally deforesting land for cattle ranching .

The unprecedented surge in wildfires has occurred since Bolsonaro took office in January vowing to develop the Amazon region for farming and mining , ignoring international concern over increased deforestation.

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Asked about the spread of uncontrolled fires, Bolsonaro brushed off criticism, saying it was the time of the year of the “ queimada ” or burn , when farmers use fire to clear land .

“I used to be called Captain Chainsaw . Now I am Nero , setting the Amazon aflame. But it is the season of the queimada ,” he told reporters.

Space agency INPE

, however, said the large number of wildfires could not be attributed to the dry season or natural phenomena alone .

“There is nothing abnormal about the climate this year or the rainfall in the Amazon region, which is just a little below average,” said INPE researcher Alberto Setzer .

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People frequently blame the dry season for the wildfires in the Amazon , but that is not quite accurate, he said.

“ The dry season creates the favorable conditions for the use and spread of fire , but starting a fire is the work of humans , either deliberately or by accident ,” Setzer said.

Bolsonaro recently fired the director of INPE after he criticized agency statistics showing an increase in deforestation in Brazil

, saying they were inaccurate.

“ I am waiting for the next set of numbers, that will not be made up numbers . If they are alarming, I will take notice of them in front of you,” he told reporters.

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