South America Continues to Burn: Record Number of Fires in 2024
There have been 346,000 fires this year, more than the previous record set in 2007
South America is on its knees due to the huge number of fires ravaging the continent. Brazil and Bolivia were hardest hit, but the blaze also affected Peru, Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia.
Satellite data analyzed by the Brazilian space research agency INPE recorded 346,112 flares in 13 South American countries this year, surpassing the previous record of 345,322 flares in 2007 (data collected since 1998).
Analysts explain that most of the fires are of malicious origin, but the recent conditions of drought and heat waves hitting the continent are definitely not helping. According to Brazil’s national disaster monitoring agency, CEMADEN, the drought affecting Brazil between 2023 and 2024 is the most intense and longest since at least 1950.
The skies of South America are covered with smoke that is caused by fires and becomes particularly intense when the Amazon forest burns, where the concentration of vegetation is particularly high, reports Reuters, according to which smoke covers about 9 million km² of South America, more than half of the continent (not all at once). In the first days of September, air quality in the city of São Paulo became even worse than in major Chinese and Indian metropolitan areas known for their pollution records.