Over 500 Major Forest Fires in Last Three Months, suggests reports

Brazil’s Amazon forests are burning at an exceptional rate this year. In 2020 itself, around 516 significant forest fires have been distinguished across 9,12,863 acres of land between May 28 and August 27—the burnt land generally identical to about 6.5 times the territory of Mumbai city. 

As per the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) satellite information analysis, almost 50% of these forest fires have happened in only the previous fourteen days of August 2020, while the initial ten days of August reported around 10,136 blasts (complete little and enormous flames) over the forest. 

Further, according to Mongabay, of the total forest fires distinguished for the current year, 83% were reported for from deforested regions, while over 12% were in intact forests that spread a total territory of 1,73,000 acres. 

One of the biggest forest fire occurrences was reported for on August 17, which burned almost 25,605 acres of land—which amounts to around 14,500 football fields. The blaze was detected close to the Xingu River in the Amazon territory of Pará in Northern Brazil. 

Overall, the 2020 season’s forest fires are being regarded as the worst in the most recent decade. 

So as to control the backwoods fires, the Brazilian government, back in July 2020, prohibited any fire action for 120 days in the Amazon and Pantanal areas. In any case, even this boycott couldn’t prevent or control the seething flames in the valuable ecosystem. 

According to Brazil’s Space Research Institute, the deforestation action from August 2019 to July 2020 expanded by almost 34%, while the quantity of flames from July 2019 to July 2020 rose by 28%. Indeed, even a year ago, a record 80,000 flames were reported for across Brazil by August, a 77% year-to-year increment for a similar following period. 

While deplorable, these occasions aren’t new, as timberland fires have consistently been an overseeing issue in South America, and the best danger to the Amazonian forests. In 2005, Brazil had encountered disturbing incident of forests fires too, where in excess of 1,33,000 flames were reported for in the initial eight months of the year.