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Last year’s fires in the Brazilian Amazon were the worst in nine years, sparking widespread international protests that the country is not doing enough to protect the rainforest. This year’s official figures for August, which generally mark the start of the fire season, show that fires are approaching last year’s spread, just five percent less.
But the figures are preliminary. Now researchers at the Brazilian space research institute Inpe, which is helping produce the figures, warn that they should be corrected. The reason for the delay in the correct figures is a problem with a NASA satellite, which has caused the data to be incomplete since mid-August.
According to Alberto Setzer, a researcher at Inpe, the figures will probably show an increase of one to two percent in August compared to the same month last year. If true, it would be the worst August since 2010 in terms of wildfires.
– There will be an increase. The number of fires, the pixels of fire, will be higher, says Alberto Setzer.
By pixels of fire is meant hotspots recorded on satellite images. Neither the responsible authorities nor the politicians have wanted to comment on this.
During last year’s fire season, President Jair Bolsonaro received much criticism for having weakened environmental protection in the Amazon, and instead for driving further deforestation.
