What is seen from the satellites passing over Brazil is disturbing. After enduring the worst drought on record in 2024, 30.86 million hectares of nature went up in smoke in the South American country between January and December 2024, an area larger than Italy. The comparison with 2023 is alarming, +79%, the record recorded by Fire Monitor since its launch in 2019, i.e. the system of the NGO MapBiomas which collaborates with Brazilian universities and companies in the technology sector. The news, reported by yesterday’s Guardian, comes just as Brazil is preparing to host COP-30 which will be held next November in Belém, capital of the Amazonian state of Pará. In practice, what went up in smoke last year would represent a greater extension than what burned in the last six years, while the severe drought that occurred between 2023 and 2024 was the worst since the Brazilian government began keeping track of it in 1950, which is been amplified by the effects of El Niño. Ane Alencar, coordinator of Map Biomas, explained: “It was a huge increase, for the first time forest areas were the most affected, overtaking prairies and pastures. Once a forest is hit by fire it takes years to recover. If there is another drought and that forest is not protected, it will burn again.” The researcher pointed out: “This is only one part of the phenomenon, the other concerns human activity”, indicating mainly the agricultural sector which often uses fire to clear pastures, as well as deforestation which has been drastically reduced under the third term of the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvabut it has not yet been eradicated. “There have also been cases where fires simply started in the middle of a forest, which suggests possible criminal activity,” Alencar concluded.
According to local media at the height of the fires in September suspicion fell on criminals’ possible backlash against federal efforts to crack down on illegal deforestation and mining, with the Federal Police opening 119 alleged arson investigations in 2024 alone, an increase 70% compared to previous years. Ane Alencar also argues that in 2025 a very strong rainy season will be needed for the land to regenerate, but that the blame cannot fall on Lula’s administration: “If we had seen last year the level of deforestation we have had in 2022, when the country was led by Jair Bolsonarodecidedly climate change denier, combined with the weather conditions that unfolded in 2024, it would have been even worse then.” In Brazil there is the Military Fire Brigade (Bombeiros Militar), which in addition to firefighting deals with Civil Protection and Search and Rescue. The first organization with this purpose was founded in 1856 by Emperor Peter II as a civil department, then transformed in 1880 into a military corps and therefore organized with an internal hierarchy very similar to that of the French Sapeurs-pompiers, therefore people who were alerted when necessary, but who were involved in other activities. Since 1915 it has been a force of the Auxiliary Military Reserve of the Brazilian Army, which is also part of the Single Public Security System. According to what is reported on the Department’s website, in 2022 it had over 63,000 active soldiers, of which 55,950 men and 7,600 women, while reservists are over 543,000, an enormous number necessary to intervene in the very vast territory of the nation, over 8.511 million square kilometers.
