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Large fires are spreading for many miles in some of Brazil’s most biodiverse regions, and the worst of the annual fire season is still a few weeks away.
By Ana Ionova
Report from Rio de Janeiro
Brazil’s classic fire season is still weeks away, but many fires, fueled by sweltering temperatures, are already devastating the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, and parts of the Amazon rainforest.
Scientists say burning such massive tracts of land may simply constitute a new trend amid rising global temperatures and asymmetrical rainfall, making efforts to save some of the planet’s largest ecosystems much more difficult.
Between January and June of this year there were more wildfires in Brazil’s Pantanal, a great treasure trove of biodiversity spanning three countries, than at the same time in any year, according to the National Institute for Space Research, which has been tracking fires in Brazil since 1998. .
The highest number of fires in at least two decades also recorded in the Amazon and the Cerrado savannah, a mosaic of shrubs, grasslands and gnarled trees covering 1. 2 million square kilometers in Brazil’s central and northeastern regions.
“It’s cause for concern so early,” said Ane Alencar, clinical director of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute in Brazil. Fires of this magnitude, he said, usually don’t occur until August or September, when fires reach their maximum intensity.
But excessive weather caused the fires to spread temporarily and uncontrollably through other people who were lit recklessly, Dr. Alencar said, “creating the ideal situations for any spark to become a wildfire. “
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