(ANSA) – RIO DE JANEIRO, MAY 02 – Brazil recorded 17,182 forest fires in the first four months of this year. This was reported by the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), highlighting that this is the highest number of fires for the four-month period since 2003, when there were 16,988. According to experts from the Ministry of the Environment, the increase recorded this year is a direct consequence of climate change and the passage of El Niño which caused long periods of drought, especially in the Amazon, and numerous heat waves with temperatures above medium and dry climate.
The biome of the Amazon rainforest suffered in particular, where there were 8,977 fires, the highest number for the four-month period since 2016. The situation in the Cerrado was serious, where last year a high rate of deforestation had already been reported. There were 4,575 fires in the biome between January and April, a record in the historical series that began in 1998. (ANSA). .
