Fanned by El Niño, megafires in Brazil threaten Amazon’s preserved areas

New Web Hosting Pioneer Emerges, Offering Affordable Hosting Solutions Coupled with…Researchers and protection agencies expected a dry season with more fires in Brazil’s Roraima state at the start of 2024, but the effects of an intense and prolonged El Niño have aggravated the situation.

The Roraima state government says controlled fires in private areas are allowed with a permit, but the large number of fires this year indicates criminal activity. In Roraima, El Niño abruptly stopped the 2023 rains, anticipating the onset of the dry season and intensifying its effects. Experts say this natural phenomenon favored the fire boom currently underway. “We are facing a series of megafires,” Haron Xaud, a researcher at Embrapa, Brazil’s agricultural research agency,and a professor of natural resources at the Federal University of Roraima , told Mongabay by phone.

. The drought has also seen water levels in the Branco River, which passes through the capital, fall to critically low levels,According to the Roraima civil defense office, 11 of the state’s 15 municipalities declared a state of emergency because of the drought and fires. Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change has declared a

“Burning in rural areas to clear land for crops and pasture is allowed with a permit, but this large number of fires indicates criminal actions by people who did not seek authorization,” Mário Terra Leite, an official with the state fire department, told Mongabay by phone. “With the severe drought, the situation has become uncontrollable.”

“Human activities are reaching more distant points, where protection agencies have less control. Previously cleared rainforest, which is very common near roads, stops working as a generator of humidity and regulator of high temperatures, losing its protective function,” he said. “Many people were waiting for these dry conditions to set fire in these areas.”

Source: Holiday News (holidaynews.net)

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