Brazil fires sweep into world's largest wetland

BRASILIA－Flames are ravaging Brazil's Pantanal wetland, the world's largest, approaching the region's main highway and threatening endangered species amid a near-record number of fires.

Brazil's national space research agency Inpe has registered 3,121 fires in the first 15 days of August, nearly five times higher than the same period a year ago. At the current pace, fires could approach the record for any month since monitoring began in 1998.

Firefighters in the area worked to douse smoldering earth that was charred black as clouds of smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air.

Experts say the fires that threaten the world's largest rainforest are rarely a natural phenomenon and are mostly set by speculators to clear land for pasture.

Speaking on a visit to Mato Grosso State to see the firefighting efforts in the Pantanal, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said the challenges loom large.

"The atmosphere is very hot, very dry, with strong winds and high temperatures," Salles said.

"We saw hundreds of fires along the journey throughout the day. Places where the planes and firemen have fought the fires directly without stopping, but still the fires are causing great damage to fauna, flora and to the Pantanal region."

Roughly 8,500 square kilometers, or nearly 6 percent of the Pantanal, burned from January to July, according to government data.

The Pantanal is 10 times the size of the Everglades wetlands in the US state of Florida. The region is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet with more than 4,700 plant and animal species, including threatened ones like the jaguar, according to advocacy group WWF.

Rising concerns

Most of the largest sanctuary for the blue hyacinthine macaw parrots has gone up in flames this year, Brazil's Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported.

The region has been suffering from below-average rainfall and higher-than-average temperatures in the past 30 days, according to data provider Refinitiv.

"It is extremely difficult to combat, control and combat again a fire with the dimensions that we have seen here in the Pantanal," said Paulo Barroso, president of a local firefighting committee.

The blazes in the Pantanal come amid rising concerns about fires in the Amazon, its much larger neighbor to the north.

Fires spiked in the first few days of August in the Amazon, but were down by 17 percent for Aug 1-15, compared with the same period a year ago. Deforestation rose 34.5 percent in the 12 months through July, compared with a year earlier.

Agencies Via Xinhua