‘If the fires intensify, we’ll have a period of very unhealthy air,’ says an environmentalist about wildfires

Brasil de Fato

The record wildfire season in the Amazon is forming a corridor of smoke that has already reached at least ten Brazilian states. From January up until now, 63,000 fire outbreaks were spotted in the biome, according to Brazil’s Institute for Space Research (INPE, in Portuguese), which monitors the region using satellite images.

The number is the highest since 2014 and has a growth trend, considering the fact that August is not yet over, highlights Ane Alencar, director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM, in Portuguese). During this Thursday’s Central do Brasil (22), she analyzed what is happening.

“August has a really high number of wildfires. We’ve even beaten last year’s number of hotspots. It’s a phenomenon related to climate conditions,” she explains.

“We’re going through an intense second drought in the region [the Amazon], and everything indicates that we will deal with intense wildfires at the end of August and into September. That, of course, generates smoke – a lot of smoke.”

Ane explains that the smoke spreads following the air flow that brings humidity from the Amazon to the central-western and southern regions of the country. There are records of heavy smoke in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, part of Minas Gerais and parts of São Paulo.

“Concentrated smoke creates a serious health problem,” warns IPAM’s director. “Normally, when this happens in the Amazon, there are days when we are breathing low-quality air. The main consequences are respiratory diseases and eye problems. And often people don’t even have a way to get treatment, a hospital nearby. If the fires increase even more, we’re going to have an intense period of very unhealthy air,” he said.

The fires have already reached their highest level in 17 years. And another cause – associated with drought – is related to the El Niño phenomenon, which hit Brazil between 2023 and 2024.

On Wednesday (21), the federal government met with the governors of the states that make up the Legal Amazon to discuss wildfire prevention and control in the region.

After the meeting, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change announced that it would be setting up action fronts where there are currently the highest numbers of fires. The measures will be concentrated in 21 municipalities, which account for 50% of the hotspots in the Amazon. Ane praises the measures and demands attention to the issue.

“What we’ve seen is an important movement to curb wildfires, but we have to understand very well the responsibility for these actions. Each place in the Amazon has a government agent, that is, the state, municipal or federal governments, responsible for fighting fires. Therefore, I think we have to look at this articulation.”

“It’s important for us to understand what has been done from the point of view of inter-institutional coordination to know if this fight is being carried out in the best way possible. Various biomes in Brazil are burning: the Pantanal, the Amazon, and part of the Cerrado. More than ever, it’s of the uttermost importance that all the agencies working to combat wildfires work together to deal with the scale of the problem,” she concludes.

The full interview (in Portuguese) by Luana Ibelli is available on Wednesday’s edition of Central do Brasil, on Brasil de Fato’s YouTube channel.

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Central do Brasil is produced by Brasil de Fato. It is broadcast live from Monday to Friday at 1 pm (local time) by Rede TVT and partners.