Rains, military response help curb fires in Brazil's Amazon in September

The number of fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has receded, falling 36% ...

BRASILIA - The number of fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has receded, falling 36% in September from August to well below a 20-year historic average for the month, amid improved weather conditions and containment efforts by the country’s military.

Fires during the first eight months of the year had surged to their highest since 2010 in August, according to data from Brazil’s space research agency INPE. That news drew a global outcry that Brazil was not doing enough to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest, a bulwark against climate change.

The fires in the Amazon are largely man-made and not natural, likely set by farmers to clear land for agriculture, according to scientists. In the dry season - roughly from May to September, although it varies year to year - the fires often get out of control as the vegetation is dry and there isn’t enough rain to help curtail the blazes.

“In the more populated areas you might have a greater effect of the army extinguishing fires and putting some sense into people who would just burn the land to clear it with no care whether this fire will spread,” Dias said.“The weather helped in some sense. Where it rained, it extinguished fires,” the atmospheric science professor said.

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