Brazil is plunging into darkness. And it's not about a power outage or a solar eclipse. The Brazilian rainforest in the Amazon has been burning for 16 days. The wind brought smoke from forest fires blazing about 2700 km from São Paulo. Brazilian space research center INPE detected about 72,843 localized fires, a record figure.
On Tuesday, the sky in São Paulo was clouded with black smoke. “It was as if the day had turned into night,” a resident of the city, Janvitor Diaz, told the BBC. Twitter was full of photos.
“Imagine how much you need to burn to create so much smoke,” writes a resident of São Paulo.
And that was the color of the rainwater.
The Institute of Biological Sciences at the University of São Paulo concluded that the water was blackened by ash and ash in the atmosphere. São Paulo is far from the rain forests - on the other side of the country. However, some experts believe that the smoke reached the city after traveling thousands of kilometers.
Promotional video:
The darkness on the street lasted for an hour, and it was provoked by fires in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia. NASA has released photographs taken from space that show heavy smoke over the Amazon rainforest.
What's happening?
Forest fires in northern Brazil have been going on for several weeks. On August 12, the state of Amazonas declared a state of emergency due to the increasing frequency of fires. In the state this year, 1,699 fires were recorded, with 80% of them in July.
Environmental organization Greenpeace associates the increase in the number of fires with deforestation efforts - clearing forests from areas for the development of mining enterprises or freeing up land for farms. Fire is the main deforestation tool used by local residents, Greenpeace notes.
On August 10 and 11, according to the organization, farmers in the southwestern state of Pará held a "Fire Day." They simultaneously lit a fire in several areas of the forest.
As a result, the number of outbreaks in the area of the city of Novo Progresso quadrupled overnight.
In July, the National Institute for Space Research released a report that said the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 88% over the year.
This map shows the current level of CO concentration in South America.