Ane Alencar, Director of Science at IPAM (Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia), highlighted by the scientific journal Fire as one of the world leaders in fire science, explains how the expansion of fire monitoring influences Brazilian conservation and anticipates what the fire season will be like.
Karina Custódio*
How did the projects to expand fire monitoring to other countries begin? And what are their objectives?
Mapbiomas, a collaborative network that IPAM is part of, won an award: the Audacious, which is one of the most recognized awards in the field of technological innovation. With this award, we set out to expand our action to 70% of the countries with tropical forests.
Fire is one of the main vectors of landscape transformation in tropical countries, not just because it can cause a disturbance, but because it is an important tool for use and cover and for farming.
Fire monitoring will bring many benefits to the other countries and to the institutions that are working in the MapBiomas network, facilitating their advocacy work and the proposal of public policies.
We at IPAM, who coordinate this fire mapping in the MapBiomas network, are supporting this expansion in the form of training, so that other countries can produce their data according to what we have experienced.
How can this expansion help Brazilian environmental conservation?
Knowing the dynamics of fire in any country is fundamental for managing natural resources when fire is part of the ecological system. And also to protect natural resources when it is not part of this process.
In the case of neighboring countries, if we can know what, when and why they are burning, we can develop control strategies and reduce the area burned. And this will have a very positive impact, for example, on the smoke coming into Brazil, or even to prevent a fire escaping from a neighboring country and reaching Brazilian biomes.
Fire sees no borders. Being able to strengthen public policies for integrated fire management in South American countries is great not only for them, but also for all neighboring countries.
The area burned in the first months of 2025 was significantly lower than in the same months of the previous year. What led to this reduction?
Fire responds a lot to climate issues, and in Brazil this year we have a very different climate pattern from last year. We came from two years of very severe drought, which worsened at the beginning of the 2024 drought period, which affected several biomes.
This year, as well as having had a good period of rain, a large part of Brazil has experienced cold fronts and the Amazon is now beginning the strongest period of drought. This delay in the drought period, and the reduction in its intensity, contributes greatly to the reduction in fire activity.
Another factor that I think is important is that there was an increase in deforestation in May, which led to an increase in inspections and actions to control deforestation, which may have inhibited the use of fire.
And a third factor was the effect of the amount of land burned last year, the impact of this, which was not only environmental, but also economic and on people’s health. I think this has prompted a little more caution. In addition, of course, to everything that is being structured to combat fires.
Will the pattern of reduction in burnt areas continue throughout the fire season?
There are several factors that can impact the fire season. The soil is not fully recharged due to two years of very extreme drought in a row, the planet is warming up, and 2025, although not at record levels, is very close to record temperatures.
But considering the climate in the country, I believe that we won’t have a situation of fires like we had last year. Mainly in the Amazon biome and the Pantanal, while the Cerrado depends on how much deforestation in the Matopiba region [a region covering municipalities in Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia] is combated.
Could the increase in deforestation in the Amazon cause the area burned to grow?
Whenever there is an increase in deforestation there is a potential for an increase in fires, due to the presence of more combustible material to be burned.
However, the increase in deforestation recorded by DETER [Real-Time Deforestation Detection System] has a large percentage of area detected as deforested, but which, in fact, corresponds to a forest so intensely burned that it has led to a change in that area. A loss of its forest characteristics, indicating that this area was affected in the past.
Is the current rate of reduction in the area burned enough to halt the degradation of the Amazon?
Reducing fire activity is very important so that we don’t have the possibility of the fire escaping and generating a wildfire.
This year we need to protect all the forests in the Amazon, with even more attention to those already affected by fire in 2024. Because the vegetation is greatly damaged by having two consecutive years of fire in the same forest, reducing the possibility of recovery for species that are more sensitive and causing a favoring of species that tolerate high temperatures, wind, fire… this can transform the landscape in the long term.
That’s why it’s essential that this year all forests are protected, but especially those that caught fire last year.
IPAM communications analyst*
