Fires out of control Almost a quarter of Brazil has burned since 1985
Fires rage in Brazil every year - especially from June to October. The largest wetland is currently causing concern: the Pantanal is on fire.
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- In Brazil, almost a quarter of the country's territory has burned in the past four decades.
- The Pantanal wetland in the Amazon region, which is particularly worthy of protection, is currently ravaged by an extremely high number of forest fires even before the start of the dry season.
- The vast majority of fires are "caused or triggered by human activity".
In Brazil, almost a quarter of the country's territory has burned in the past four decades. A total of 199.1 million hectares caught fire at least once between 1985 and 2023 - this corresponds to 23 percent of the South American country's land area, according to a report by the "MapBiomas" initiative. The network - consisting of universities, non-governmental organizations and technology companies - examined satellite images, among other things.
The wet savannahs in the south-east of Brazil (Cerrado) and the Amazon together account for the largest proportion of the burnt area at 86 percent. The Cerrado is considered Brazil's water reservoir and is home to around five percent of all animal and plant species on the planet. The Amazon rainforest is considered a CO2 reservoir and plays an important role in the international fight against climate change.
Farmers burn down forest areas
The vast majority of fires are "caused or triggered by human activity", said Ane Alencar, head of the scientific department of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute IPAM, to the news agency Agência Brasil. More than two thirds of the area affected by the fire was natural vegetation, while the remaining area was mainly characterized by agriculture.
The Pantanal - one of the largest inland wetlands in the world - was the area that burned the most, accounting for 59 percent of its territory. The wetland, which also extends to the neighboring countries of Bolivia and Paraguay, is also currently burning fiercely: by mid-June, the Brazilian space institute Inpe had registered 1269 fires. This means that the number of fires there is already higher than the June average for the last 26 years, when records began. Farmers are burning forest areas in the region to create new grazing land. If these fires get out of control, they can cause huge wildfires.