The Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest are going through a historic environmental crisis, with over 45,400 fires registered in the month of only August and in the early days of Septembera figure that was not seen since 2005. There are also fears for the possible loss of the flood plain of the Pantanal and, unfortunately, the crisis is not limited to the tropical forest alone; toxic fumes and the particulate matter subtle produced by the fires were transported southwards, thousands of kilometres away, by atmospheric currents.”Rivers Voadores”, even enveloping several cities in a state of Sao Paulo in a thick cloud of smoke: this is why some schools have been closed and the air quality has dropped dramatically. The causes of the fires are multiple and include the climate changewhich brought record temperatures and drought to the area, the start of the season dry and the human activitiesoften illegal, which use fire to clear the forest.
The fires in Brazil
The Brazil is facing a serious environmental crisis that has hit its tropical forests hard, including the Amazon Rainforest, the lung of the planetwhich recorded a record number of fires in 2024. According to data published by theNational Institute for Space Research (INPE – National Institute of Space Research), from January 1st to September 3rd, there were 70,402 uncontrolled fires in the Brazilian Amazon rainforestThis is the highest number in recent 19 years oldmore than double the fires recorded in the same period in 2023, which amounted to 33.966. According to the data reported by the Environmental Satellite Application Laboratory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the fires would have affected an area greater than 369,000 km2. To give an idea of the vastness of the area involved, it is useful to keep in mind that Italy has a surface area of approximately 301,336 km².
What is most alarming is the intensity with which most of the fires have burned in the last month. At the end of July, the count stood at around 24,900. About 38,266 fires broke out in the month of August. Beyond 7,200 new fires have already been reported in the first week of September.
However, the Amazon rainforest is not the only one affected. The “Atlantic Forest”, located in southern Brazil, has recorded over 12,730 fires in 2024of which 6,033 events only in the month of Augustalso setting a 19-year record. The “Closed“, the vast tropical savannah in the central-eastern region of Brazil, recorded 18,620 fires in August alonethe highest number since 2012. Even the “Pantanal“, the huge floodplain in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, in central-western Brazil, one of the wettest regions on the planet, has reported over 9,300 fires in 2024recording an increase greater than the 2000% compared to the previous year.
The cloud of smoke
The effects of the fires in Brazil are not limited only to the areas adjacent to the forests, but also extend to the more distant federal states, such as Sao Paulo in the South. In fact, the particles and smoke produced by the fires were transported thousands of kilometers away by the so-called “Rivers Voadores“, literally flying rivers. These are impressive air masses filled with water vaporcoming from the Atlantic Ocean, which move westwards passing over the Amazon forest, where they accumulate further moisture, to then be pushed back from the Andes towards Bolivia, Paraguay and the central-western, south-eastern and southern regions of Brazil.
In recent weeks, the Rios Voadores have transported large quantities of smoke and particulate matter, creating smoke trails visible from space. The air quality has worsened significantly in the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Goiás, and also in the regions directly affected by the fires, such as Acre, Rondônia, Pará and Amazonas. On September 4, the site IQ Air reported values US AQI Level above 270 in some areas of the state of Mato Grosso, corresponding to levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) higher than 190 µg/m3. These values, well above the annual average recommended by theWorld Health Organization Of 5 µg/m3indicate critical conditions and air considered unhealthy. In response to this emergency, many schools across the country have been closed and citizens have been forced to wear masks to protect themselves from toxic fumes.
The causes of the fires
The causes of fires in the Amazon rainforest are multiple and, in large part, attributable to climate change and human activity. A key predisposing factor It’s definitely the beginning of the dry season, which runs from July to November, a period during which the region is particularly vulnerable to fires. In addition, northern Brazil and the Amazon region are still feeling the effects of a serious water crisis that occurred in 2023, triggered by the phenomenon of El Ninowhich caused an increase in average temperature of more than 0.8 degrees throughout the Amazon basin, in addition to causing a severe drought.
Among the predisposing factors, the effects of climate change must also be considered. A study published at the beginning of the year in the journal Nature indicates that, since the 1980s, the tropical forest has warmed by an average of 0.27°C per decade during the dry season, with peaks of 0.6 degrees in the center and southeast of the biome. As a result, the temperature during the dry season today is about 2°C higher than 40 years ago, and, if the trend continues, it could increase by more than 4°C by 2050. Furthermore, in the central regions of the forest, precipitation appears to have decreased by about 20 mm per year since the 1980s, while other regions appear wetter.
However, thehuman activity in the area represents one of the main, if not the most important, trigger factor. In fact, every year the Amazon forest undergoes a phase of deforestationfor the most part illegalduring which the biome is cut down, cut down and deliberately burned to reclaim the land and create space for thelivestock farmingtheagriculture andillegal miningNormally, moist forest alone could prevent fires from spreading to the edges of populated areas, but prolonged drought complicates this process.
According to INPE data, deforestation in the Amazon between August 2023 and July 2024 affected approximately 4,314.76 km² of surface in the regions of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins. However, the highest data were recorded between 2019 and 2021, during the previous government of Bolsonaroperiod in which over 32,000 km² of forest were destroyed in three years.
