Brazil’s northernmost state, Roraima, has a humid climate that helps the rainforest grow even during the dry season and reduces natural fires. Nevertheless, remote sensing scientists have observed large numbers of fires in the region for as long as satellite observations have been available, especially during the dry period from October to March. Most of these fires are managed fires, which are ignited to burn pastures and farmland or clear down rainforest.
According to multiple fire monitoring platforms, including SERVIR Amazon Fire Dashboard, the Brazilian Space Agency’s Queimadas program, and NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), in late February 2024, NASA satellites detected unusually widespread and intense fire activity. was observed. .
On several occasions, the satellite observed thick smoke covering much of Roraima. In recent decades, as cities such as Boavista, Caracallai, and Loraynopolis have expanded, this rapidly changing state’s forest landscape has become increasingly fragmented by new roads, pastures, and farmland.
The image at the top of the page was acquired by MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite and shows smoke pouring from several fires southwest of Boa Vista on February 22, 2024. I am. False Color (Band 7-5-) 2) The image below was taken by Landsat 8’s OLI (Operational Land Imager) and was captured by a large fire that burned near Boa Vista on February 23, 2024. It shows the burn scars that resulted.
NASA’s Aqua satellite MODIS detected more than 2,057 active fires in Roraima in February 2024, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. This number is five times the average for February and significantly exceeds the previous record of 1,347 in February 2007.
The intensity and size of many of the fires are also unusual. The European Commission’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), a system based on Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) MODIS observations, estimates that the Brazilian fires in February released more than 4.1 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. estimated to be the highest for the moon. It has been on record since 2003. about half Of these carbon emissions are due to the Roraima fire.
“In a normal year, most crop fires in this region are just a few square kilometers in area, but this year we have seen fires that start in pastures and recently cleared rainforest, and then fires that spread over hundreds of square kilometers around the area. or even spread across multiple rainforest regions, thousands of square kilometers,” said Shane Coffield, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. “This is a massive wildfire, with devastating impacts on ecosystems and air quality.”
By the way, 100 square kilometers is about 30 times the size of New York City’s Central Park. Forest fires in this region burn the understory of the rainforest without completely consuming the canopy, but can harm the rainforest by killing most trees and causing damage that lasts for decades. there is.
Because downstairs fires occur beneath the canopy, they can be difficult to detect with satellite sensors such as MODIS and VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite). On-orbit sensors with higher spatial resolution, such as OLI or OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 8 or 9 or MSI (Multi Spectral Instrument) on Sentinel-2, can more easily detect signatures. Helpful. Fires start from gaps in the canopy.
The false color image below shows a subfloor fire that burned widely in the rainforest (green) after escaping from a meadow (yellow) along BR-432 near Vila Nova Paraiso. Active fire fronts are shown in orange and burned areas are shown in brown. This image was acquired by Landsat 8’s OLI on February 23, 2024.
“The situation here is critical,” said Haron Abrahim Magalhães Zaud, a remote sensing researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation in Boavista. “We broke the monthly record for the total number of fire detections by satellite since MODIS records began in 2000. The Roraima government declared a state of emergency in nine municipalities due to drought and forest fires.”
Fire outbreaks of this size and intensity are typically exacerbated by weather and climate conditions, and this year is no exception. The Amazon Basin has been in a severe drought since mid-2023, in part because the ongoing El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean has shifted rainfall away from the region. Droughts are also severe, as human-induced global warming adds extra heat to the region, creating conditions for fires to proliferate and spread quickly.
NASA geoscientist Douglas Morton said, “In El Niño years, Amazon regions like Roraima with low precipitation could experience longer and more intense dry seasons, causing managed fires to spread out of control and cause tropical “This increases the risk of burning down the rainforest.” Goddard. He said extreme fire activity in the northern Amazon at the beginning of the calendar year is typically followed by an increase in fire activity in the southern Amazon in August and September, months after the end of El Niño in the tropical Pacific. He added that it often occurs later.
Earth scientists in Brazil and around the world will use tools powered by satellite observations to track the upcoming Amazon fire season. “I check FIRMS, SERVIR Amazon Fire Dashboard, INPE’s BD-Queimadas, and CENSIPAM Fire Dashboard (Painel do Fogo) every day,” Xaud said. “The benefit of the SERVIR and CENSIPAM dashboards is that they provide event-level information, making it easier to visualize and track individual fires.”
Morton and Coffield aren’t just using existing tools to track the latest fire activity. They’re also in the process of building something even better. Cofield is currently working to improve fire detection technology and develop new visualization tools based on Landsat 8 and his 9 and Sentinel 2 observations (a prototype is available here) . We hope that this will ultimately make it easier to identify understory forest fires.
NASA Earth Observatory imagery by Wanmei Liang using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The story of Adam Voiland.
