Erica Cristina has been “breathing smoke every day” since a major fire broke out across the river near the city of Corumba, the gateway to Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland.
The fire, which filled the bar she owns with soot, is one of hundreds of blazes in the vast, natural Pantanal, which is seeing record fires for this time of year.
“It’s chaotic,” the 44-year-old told AFP in central-west Corumba, where the fire last week turned the sky bright red.
This longtime resident of the Pantanal region, originally from Rio de Janeiro, said the increasing fires were making the situation for residents “worse as the years passed.”
“Many people have lost their homes” to fires since 2020 – the worst year ever for fires in the region – and “the main problems are due to health and respiratory problems,” says Cristina.
In the first half of this year, satellites recorded more than 3,300 fires in the region slightly larger than England, 33 percent more than in 2020.
Experts say the fires are the result of severe drought linked to climate change and deliberate fires aimed at expanding agricultural land into forests that are growing out of control.
The Pantanal, which extends to Bolivia and Paraguay, is home to millions of caimans, parrots, giant otters and the world’s highest density of jaguars.
Seasonal flooding in plains, swamps, savannas and forest areas during the rainy season is crucial for the biodiverse ecosystem.
Minister of Environment Marina Silva warned on Monday that the Pantanal was facing “one of the worst situations ever seen”.
“We didn’t have the usual flooding or the gap between El Nino and La Nina,” two weather phenomena that affect rainfall, she said.
A study published Wednesday by the MapBiomas network shows that the Pantanal’s wet surface was 61 percent drier last year than the historical average.
The drought “resulted in a large amount of organic material at the combustion point causing these fires,” said Silva, who will visit the region on Friday.
– ‘Lost in the flames’ –
Fires are already reaching new records before the peak of the dry season.
“The strong winds, the fires and the heat usually start in August,” but “it has not rained in the region for 50 days,” Bruno Bellan, a 25-year-old livestock farmer, told AFP.
Bellan has 900 head of cattle on his family farm in Mato Grosso do Sul state, home to much of the wetlands, which declared a state of emergency on Monday because of the fires.
His property is two kilometers away from a large fire, which the fire brigade had difficulty extinguishing.
“We are concerned that the fire will enter the farm and cause destruction. The cattle are scared and may get lost in the flames,” Bellan said.
Retired soldier Naldinei Ivan Ojeda, 53, said he was considering leaving his hometown because of breathing problems he and his 15-year-old son were having.
He points the blame squarely at the people who start the fires, and not at the dry conditions that spur them on.
“There are no accidental fires in the Pantanal. I’ve never seen a fire start out of nowhere here. Every year it’s the same.”
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