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AP Explains: Causes, Risks of Amazon Fires

Associated Press

   RIO DE JANEIRO - Fires have been breaking out at an unusual pace in
   Brazil this year, causing global alarm over deforestation in the Amazon
   region. The world's largest rainforest is often called the ``lungs of
   the earth.'' Here's a look at what's happening:

   What's burning?

   Brazil's National Space Research Institute, which monitors
   deforestation, has recorded 76,720 wildfires across the country this
   year, as of Thursday. That's an 85% rise over last year's figure. And a
   little over half of those, 40,341, have been spotted in the Amazon
   region.
   The agency says it doesn't have figures for the area burned, but
   deforestationas a whole hasaccelerated in the Amazon this year. The
   institute's preliminary figures show 3,571 square miles (9,250 square
   kilometers) of forest -- an area about the size of Yellowstone National
   Park -- were lost between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1. That already outstrips the
   full-year figure for 2018 of 2,910 square miles (7,537 square
   kilometers).
   Stricter enforcement of environmental laws between 2004 and 2014 had
   sharply curbed the rate of deforestation, which peaked in the early
   2000s at 9,650 square miles a year (25,000 square kilometers).
   Meanwhile, large fires also have been burning in neighboring countries
   such as Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.
   What's causing the fires?

   PauloMoutinho, co-founder of the Amazon Environmental Research
   Institute, said this week that ``it is very difficult to have natural
   fires in the Amazon; it happens, but the majority come from the hand of
   humans.''

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