Smoke signal?
January and February blazes typically account for a small share of the Amazon’s annual fires.
Scientists fear, however, that this year’s early record could signal a more widespread crisis ahead, as decades of human intervention and the ongoing severe drought - driven by the El Niño climate pattern - turn forest to fuel.
Fires open the way for highly flammable grass to grow, which in turn “generates even more catastrophic fires over the next years,” said IPAM’s Leonardo Maracahipes-Santos.
“
What we are seeing right now is a result of 2023’s drought… The landscape has become extremely inflammable, so that any spark may become a blazing fire.
Ane Alencar, researcher, IPAM Amazônia
“Especially if combined with severe drought,” he added from a 36-metre (120-ft) tower set up by IPAM in Querência, southern Amazon, to investigate the changing forest.
Viewed from above, the Amazon unrolls towards the horizon, cut short by soy fields. Under a canopy of green, Maracahipes-Santos points to a fire scar on a nearby tree.
“Flames embrace the tree and unite on the opposite side, forming a triangle. Even when the tree doesn’t die immediately, this opening makes it more vulnerable,” he said.
Deforestation
With more dead trees, the ground becomes ever more dry and flammable, said Liana Anderson of Brazil’s National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters.
Plus, fires are “increasingly used as a weapon against traditional populations” in areas of dispute where farmers, loggers and hunters are fighting for land, she said.
The worst fires typically come between July and November, when the forest’s southern and eastern fringes are at their driest, while rain drenches the northern Amazon.
Even during unusually dry seasons, rainforest fires are not sparked naturally and must be deliberately ignited. Land grabbers and farmers burn the forests over years so areas can be re-purposed, mostly for cattle ranching.
According to Manoela Machado, a researcher at the U.S.-based Woodwell Climate Research Center, Brazil’s Amazon has undergone exceptionally high levels of deforestation since 2019.
Although rates have been declining, deforestation remains high, she said, especially in the southern and eastern fringes.
“If there is deforestation, there will be fire,” she added.
Extreme weather
A key unknown is the amount of rain that will hit the southern and eastern Amazon in coming months - and whether it will be enough to recharge the forest’s soil and rivers.
This week, Brazil’s National Water Agency said key Amazon rivers were below their average levels for the month, and predicted that rainfall would dip below the average for eastern Amazon and parts of its southern fringes from March through May.
“It is not raining enough,” said Alencar from IPAM.
Scientists say climate change increases the likelihood of drastic events, from drought to flood.
At the same time, large swathes of forest are vanishing to deforestation and fire, making it less resilient.
Some scientists fear this combination may push the forest to a tipping point of no return.
Instead of absorbing planet-heating carbon, the forest would die out, becoming a net carbon emitter and accelerating climate change - a shift already detected in some areas.
Deforestation rates have dropped in the forest since 2023, when President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva came to power vowing to restore environmental protections. But the dangers remain high.
“Climate is increasingly dryer and warmer, providing more dry fuel, and there is a greater motivation to burn. This cycle will not end if there is not a stop to deforestation,” said Manoela Machado, from the Woodwell Center.
This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit https://www.context.news/.
