Climate-driven Amazon drought spurs devastating wildfires in Venezuela
![Climate-driven Amazon drought spurs devastating wildfires in Venezuela](https://sustainabilityeconomicsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Depositphotos_342456496_S.webp)
On Monday, data showed Venezuela facing a surge in wildfires due to a drought linked to climate change in the Amazon rainforest region.
Satellites detected over 30,200 fire points in Venezuela from January to March, marking the highest count for this period since records began in 1999, as reported by Brazil’s Inpe research agency, which is responsible for monitoring South America.
These fires encompass those within the Amazon and those afflicting the nation’s additional forests and grasslands.
Also read: Texas wildfire engulfs record 1.1 million acres, marks state’s largest blaze ever
Researchers assert that human-initiated fires, typically ignited to clear land for agricultural purposes, are rapidly escalating due to elevated temperatures, diminished rainfall in northern South America, and inadequate prevention strategies.
Scientists attribute the drought to climate change and El Niño, a natural phenomenon characterized by warming in the eastern Pacific Ocean that disrupts global weather patterns.
Although the rainy season has provided some respite in Brazil’s Amazon region recently, the proliferation of fires in Venezuela signals potential concerns for the impending dry season, cautioned Manoela Machado, a fire researcher from the University of Oxford.
“Everything is indicating we’re going to see other events of catastrophic fires – megafires that are huge in size and height,” Machado said.
“I am shocked, if not to say alarmed, by this fire,” said Carlos Carruido Perez, who lives nearby. “I had never seen a fire of this magnitude and this damage to the environment.”
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