Forest fires rage in Brazil

Last Friday alone, Brazil's state climate institute INPE registered almost 5,000 fires throughout the country. Several cities with millions of inhabitants are shrouded in thick clouds of smoke, including Manaus on the Rio Negro. In the Amazon region, 1,700 fires were counted. Many communities in Brazil have declared a state of emergency.

Hardly any place in Brazil has been spared. Smoke stretches over 4,000 kilometers from the Amazon in the north through the Pantanal wetlands in western Brazil to the south-eastern state of Sao Paulo, one of the country's most important agricultural areas.

Shortly before flames reached a luxury residential complex in São Paulo, the fire on a neighboring plantation was stopped. According to authorities, fires have killed at least two people in the state, and destroyed more than 20,000 hectares of land since last Thursday. The local government is talking about damage amounting to €150 million ($167 million).

In the vast majority of cases, arson is thought to be the cause of the fires. Illegal slash-and-burn practices are used to create pastures for livestock and agriculture. The federal police and environmental authorities are investigating dozens of cases. Three people were arrested for arson over the weekend.

Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, was shrouded in smoke on Tuesday. The fiercest fires in 17 years are raging in the Amazon, with 60,000 counted since the beginning of the year. The entire rainforest region in South America is affected by a severe drought, which experts believe is linked to the El Nino weather pattern and climate change.

The fires are compounded by drought. Sandbanks are rising out of the Rio Madeira, a tributary of the Amazon. The river levels have been falling since the beginning of June, a month earlier than usual. Low water levels mean that villages and towns in the region are cut off from supplies and authorities fear that the current drought could even exceed last year's record-breaking drought.

Brazil is not the only country affected by the fires. According to the authorities, there are currently around 22,000 active fires in neighboring Bolivia too, which have burned around 2 million hectares of land so far. On Tuesday, Brazil and Bolivia announced their intention to fight the fires in the border region together.

The fires are a serious political setback for Brazil's left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He had promised to protect the rainforest and stop illegal deforestation by 2030. Under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, the destruction of the rainforest reached new highs.