Amazon blazes fuel fears of deeper climate crisis

QUERENCIA, Brazil — The Amazon is battling record early-year fires, fueling fears of a worse climate crisis as blazes kill vegetation that is key to absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide.

Fanned by drought, high winds and human felling, the forest is suffering unprecedented fires early in the year, satellite images show, with the dry season still to reach critical parts of the Amazon.

"Traditional as well as scientific knowledge point to dire times ahead," said Sinea do Vale of the Indigenous Council of Roraima, the Brazilian state worst hit by last month's unprecedented fires. "If emissions do not drop drastically, we will keep suffering."

Fire is currently concentrated in the northern Amazon, satellite data show, with Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela registering a record number of blazes last month, according to data gathered by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, or INPE.

Last month, 3,158 fire episodes were registered by INPE in Brazil's Amazon, beating the previous record of 1,761 in 2007.

The Amazon's carbon emissions reached a record high for that month, according to the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

"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," said Ane Alencar, a researcher at IPAM Amazonia environmental institute in Brazil.

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 current severe drought — driven by the El Nino 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 Leonardo Maracahipes-Santos of IPAM. "Especially if combined with severe drought."