The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon reached the highest level in almost 15 years on Monday, according to official data released this Friday that show another sign of the destruction that affects the largest tropical forest in the world.
Satellite images detected 3,358 fires on August 22, the highest number in a single day since September 2007, an official from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The number is three times higher than that recorded on August 10, 2019, known as the “day of fire”, when Brazilian farmers launched a vast slash-and-burn operation in the northeast of the country, which extended to São Paulo, about 2500 kilometers. away, drawing international condemnation.
According to Alberto Setzer, head of INPE’s fire monitoring program, there is no evidence that Monday’s fires were coordinated.
Instead, the fires are part of an overall pattern of increased deforestation.
Experts attribute the fires in the Amazon to the action of farmers, ranchers and speculators, who illegally deforest by burning trees.
“The regions with the most fires are moving further and further north” after a “growing arc of deforestation,” Setzer told AFP.
The fire season in the Amazon usually begins in August, with the onset of the drought.
This year, up to July, INPE detected 5,373 fires, 8% more than in the same month of 2021.
Since the beginning of August, 24,124 fires have been registered, figures still far from those of August 2005, when 63,764 were detected.
