Over 1,000 new fires reported in Amazon

Environmentalists have said farmers clearing land for pasture were responsible for the uptick in fires

SÃO PAOLO: A day after Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro announced that he would mobilise the army to combat the wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, hundreds of new fires are reportedly now raging according to official data, as six of the nine states in the region requested military assistance to combat the record blazes.

The states of Para, Rondonia, Roraima, Tocantins, Acre and Mato Grosso requested the army’s help, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles announced on Saturday.

Data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said some 1,663 new fires were ignited between Thursday and Friday. More than 1,200 of those fires were in the Amazon region.

Official figures recorded 78,383 forest fires in Brazil this year, an 84 per cent rise over last year’s figure. More than half of those were in the Amazon region.

Environmentalists have said farmers clearing land for pasture were responsible for the uptick in fires. The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and its protection is seen as vital to the fight against climate change because of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide it absorbs.

Some 44,000 troops will be available for “unprecedented” operations to put out the fires, Defence Minister Fernando Azevedo said.

He added that the military’s first mission will be the deployment of 700 troops to the area around Porto Velho, capital of Rondonia, where the military will use two C-130 Hercules aircraft capable of dumping up to 12,000 litres of water on fires per journey.

On Friday, multiple fires were seen were raging across a vast area of Rondonia, billowing huge plumes of smoke into the air, according to reports. Several residents of Porto Velho said what appeared to be light clouds hanging over the city of half a million people was actually smoke from the blazes.

The Brazilian military operations came after widespread criticism of Bolsonaro’s handling of the crisis.

Azevedo defended the government response, saying that it was “very fast”.

“It shows the concern of Bolsonaro’s government about this issue,” he said.

The defence minister noted US President Trump’s offer, on Twitter, to help Brazil fight the fires but said there had been no further contact on the matter.

“Any help is welcome in respect to the fires,” he added.

Alfredo Sirkis, executive director of think-tank Brazil Climate Center and a founder of Brazil’s Green Party, said while he supported military involvement, he doubted that anyone would be able to put out the fires.

“Once you have a huge forest fire like that, especially when you don’t have all the kind of forest firefighting equipment that you have in places like the US or Portugal, it’s difficult to extinguish,” he told Reuters.

“They’ll only be extinguished by themselves depending on the weather conditions.”

Environmental specialists say the fires are coming amid increasing deforestation in the Amazon region, which in July took place at a rate four times that of the same month in 2018, according to data from INPE.

The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and its protection is seen as vital to the fight against climate change because of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide it absorbs