In the absence of human activity, fires would not burn in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
In the absence of human activity, fires would not burn in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. It’s too wet, even during the driest parts of the year. Yet for as long as satellites have made large-scale monitoring of the rainforest possible, researchers have observed thousands of fires in the Amazon every year, with especially intense activity during the dry months of July through November.
2023 is no exception. Satellite observations from several fire monitoring platforms, including the SERVIR Amazon Fire Dashboard, the Brazilian Space Agency’s Queimadas program, and NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System have detected large numbers of fires burning throughout the Amazon basin since the start of the year. They have also observed particularly intense fire activity in September and October in the northern and western Amazon as drought tightened its grip on the region.
Every year, people intentionally light large numbers of fires in the Amazon basin. Often, the goal is to clear forests or manage crops and pastures, though there are an array of other reasons including burning trash or starting cooking fires. Some fires are unintentional ignitions associated with human activity, including discarded cigarettes or sparks from electrical or farming equipment.
Read More: NASA Earth Observatory
Photo Credit: Lauren Dauphin/NASA Earth Observatory
