Amazon Forests On Fire Again
Massive fires are burning more often worldwide. Just as the largest fire in Texas has been controlled, uncontrollable blazes have hit Amazon forests. It has become a regular occurrence for the Amazon region that will never be reversed.
According to The New York Times, “A record number of fires so far this year in the Amazon has also raised questions about what may be in store for the world’s biggest tropical rainforest when the dry season starts in June in the far larger southern part of the jungle.” Heavy rains that normally fall this year have been replaced by drought. It is another wild swing like the one in the Western US. Regions in California and Arizona are in a 1,2000 doubt, yet the areas recently experienced record rain and snowfall.
Last year, fires in the Amazon region set several awful records. According to the Rainforest Foundation, “…a staggering 26.4 million acres (10.7 million hectares) of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest burned in 2023—an area comparable in size to the U.S. state of Tennessee—according to MapBiomas Fire Monitor. This represents a 35.4% increase from the previous year.”
Vast parts of the Amazon forests were burned in 2019—another set of fires burned near record amounts of forest in 2010.
Almost as bad as the fires themselves is that, between human causes and drought, the problem will happen year after year into the future. Most of these forests will be gone. It is just a question of when.
