The Amazon is the largest tropical forest in the world, it is well known got its biodiversity. It’s area is about 5 million square kilometres spanning across nine countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

Though the Amazon covers only four per cent of the earth’s surface, it contains a third of all known terrestrial plant, animal and insect species.

The Amazon rainforest contains 10 per cent of all biomass on Earth. The forest thus stores vast amounts of carbon that is released into the atmosphere as deforestation takes place. These releases contribute to global warming.

Brazil which holds 60% of the Amazon forest has had more than 93,000 fire outbreaks so far this year, burning twelve million hectares of the forest. This fire is very significant because has experienced an 84% increase on the same period in 2018 and the highest number since 2010.

The majority of these fires are of anthropogenic origin. 

Intentional human uses of fire in the Amazon are the major cause of the forest fire and they  include diverse applications, such as deforestation fires to remove unwanted biomass, pasture fires to maintain forage grasses, slash-and-burn agriculture and forest fire for city expansion. Between 1976 and 2010, deforestation fires destroyed more than 15% of the original Amazon forest. 

Degraded forest edges are most vulnerable to forest fire. Forest edges are the degraded forests adjacent to different land use. 

Synergies between direct human activities and climate change may accelerate the transformation of tropical forests by fire. 

Climate change will increase the fire severity in fire seasons, for several reasons. Firstly, rising temperature will increase the evaporation, leaving less water contained in the trees or plants and providing good environment conditions for fire-spread between trees or plants, which can contribute to higher fire intensity and severity. Secondly, climate change causes higher temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, leading to rainfall shifts that leave much areas of the Amazon drier and more vulnerable to drought.

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has been blamed for encouraging this year’s burning because of his pledge to open up the Amazon for more development, but in general his administration’s policies have suppressed the use of fire.

Bolsonaro initially pointed a finger at NGOs opposing his policies for allegedly intentionally setting fires in protest, without giving any evidence to back his claim. In August, he fired the director of the National Institute for Space Research over a dispute over data it released showing the sharp uptick in deforestation that’s taken place since Bolsonaro took office. On August 20th, Brazil’s Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles tweeted that dry weather, wind, and heat caused the fires to spread so widely. But even during the dry season, large fires aren’t a natural phenomenon in the Amazon’s tropical ecosystem.

Everyone on the planet benefits from the health of the Amazon. As its trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, the Amazon plays a huge role in pulling planet-warming greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Without it, climate change speeds up. But as the world’s largest rainforest is eaten away by fire it may not be able to provide the same buffer.

Scientists warn that the rainforest could reach a tipping point, turning into something more like a savanna when it can no longer sustain itself as a rainforest. That would mean it’s not able to soak up nearly as much carbon as it does now. And if the Amazon as we know it dies, it wouldn’t go quietly. As the trees and plants perish, they would release billions of tons of carbon that has been stored for decades — making it nearly impossible to escape a climate catastrophe.

The new research shows that these intense forest fires can make significant changes in forest species composition. Secondly, initial understory fires may increase forest flammability, thereby creating potential long-term changes in the Amazon forest structure. 

Subsequent fires burn with increased severity and intensity, leading to higher tree mortality and the loss of biodiversity, such as decreasing the wildlife habitat, disrupting plant, and destroying animal communities.

Fires in the Amazon Rainforest create other environmental problems in addition to affecting the rainforest ecosystem and killing wildlife. The most important environment issue caused by forest fire in the Amazon is the increase of greenhouse gases. 

A large number of smokes produced by forest fire during fire season or extremely dry years do have a significant negative effect on human health in the Amazon. 

In terms of economic loss, in 2005, 300,000 hectares of forest in the region experienced burning by multiple fires, causing large timber value loss and non-timber forest products loss. Direct economic losses from widespread fires in 2005 amounted to US$50 million. 

In order to effectively prevent and control fires, early fire detection and monitoring is an imperative necessarily. Remote sensing tools can be used for the Amazon forest conservation management. 

Besides fire monitoring and sustainable management, improving Law Enforcement is also important for slowing down the fire disaster in Amazon. IBAMA estimates that illegal logging accounts for appropriately 80% of all logging in the Amazon.

Therefore, government should effectively enforce current logging laws as well as the existing environmental law to weaken the negative impacts of illegal logging activities on potential forest fires.

Reforestation can rearrange the tree species, planting fire-resilient species with more fire resistant ability. What’s more, forest restoration can improve the climate conditions and reduce the forest environment’s temperature, avoiding the long time forest drought, and then reducing fire activity frequency and severity.

In sum, replacing cut down trees can weaken fire disaster by improving regional climate and preventing global climate change as well as improving tree species.