Milestone For Brazil: More Than 500 Major Amazon Fires In Less Than 1 Year, Nearly All Illegal
The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon has risen dramatically in recent weeks and now achieved a bleak milestone: more than 500 major, largely illegal, fires have been detected in the region since the end of May.
A total of 516 fires covering 376,416 hectares (912,863 acres) — an area nearly 5 times the land area of New York City — were detected between May 28 and August 25. Over half of these fires occurred in just the past two weeks, according to satellite data analysis by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).
2019’s Amazon fires burned primarily in newly cleared land, not in intact forests, and largely followed a pattern of intentional, often illegal, deforestation to make way for cattle and crops. This year, the pattern is similar, with 83% of fires burning in recently deforested areas. However, as the fire season has progressed, forests are burning. Of the fires detected so far this year, 12% were within intact forests, covering a total area of 70,330 hectares (173,000 acres) — an area almost as large as New York City’s land area. Most of these forest fires occurred over the past week.
The largest forest fire, detected on Aug 17, burned 10,362 hectares (25,605 acres) — about the size of 14,500 soccer fields — near the Xingu River in São Félix do Xingu, a municipality in the Amazon state of Pará in Northern Brazil. The fire was within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of both the Kayapó Indigenous Territory and the Terra do Meio Ecological Station, a strictly regulated nature reserve.
EDIT
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/bleak-milestone-500-major-fires-detected-in-brazilian-amazon-this-year/
