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Brazil’s Amazon rainforest experienced its highest number of fires in 17 years in 2024, government data published Wednesday showed, after the vast biome suffered months of a lengthy drought.<\/p>\n
There were 140,328 fires detected by satellite imaging over the year, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).<\/p>\n
That was 42 percent more than the 98,634 fires recorded in 2023 — and the most since 2007, when 186,463 forest fires were seen.<\/p>\n
Despite the high number of blazes, however, there were indications that the total area that suffered deforestation could be the lowest in years.<\/p>\n
In early November, INPE said deforestation in the region in the 12-month period up to August 2024 had fallen by more than 30 percent, year-on-year, and was at the lowest amount in nine years.<\/p>\n
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has made preservation of the Amazon a priority for his government, which in November this year will host the UN’s COP30 climate conference in the Amazonian city of Belem.<\/p>\n
Europe’s climate monitor, the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said last month that severe drought had stoked wildfires across South America in 2024.<\/p>\n
Thick plumes of smoke at times clouded major cities including Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo last year, with choking pollution that lingered for several weeks.<\/p>\n
Drought has parched the Amazon region since mid-2023, driven by human-caused climate change and the El Nino warming phenomenon.<\/p>\n
This helped to create conditions for the massive blazes, but experts say that most fires were set deliberately by farmers to clear land for agriculture.<\/p>\n
Scientists warn that continued deforestation will put the Amazon on track to reach a point where it will emit more carbon than it absorbs, accelerating climate change.<\/p>\n
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