More than 1,000 new fires spotted in the Amazon as six states request military’s help to combat the blazes.

Hundreds of new fires are raging in Brazil‘s Amazon rainforest, according to official data, as six of the nine states in the region requested military assistance to combat the record blazes.

The states of Para, Rondonia, Roraima, Tocantins, Acre and Mato Grosso requested the army’s help, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles announced on Saturday, one day after President Jair Bolsonaro authorised the military to step in.

Data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said some 1,663 new fires were ignited between Thursday and Friday. More than 1,200 of those fires were in the Amazon region.

Official figures recorded 78,383 forest fires in Brazil this year, an 84 percent rise over last year’s figure. More than half of those were in the Amazon region.

Environmentalists have said farmers clearing land for pasture were responsible for the uptick in fires.

National Force firefighters stand in line to board a plane to Rondonia to help fight fires [Sergio Lima/ AFP]

The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and its protection is seen as vital to the fight against climate change because of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide it absorbs.

Some 44,000 troops will be available for “unprecedented” operations to put out the fires, Defence Minister Fernando Azevedo said.

He added that the military’s first mission will be the deployment of 700 troops to the area around Porto Velho, capital of Rondonia, where the military will use two C-130 Hercules aircraft capable of dumping up to 12,000 litres of water on fires per journey.

On Friday, multiple fires were seen were raging across a vast area of Rondonia, billowing huge plumes of smoke into the air, AFP news agency reported.

Several residents of Porto Velho said what appeared to be light clouds hanging over the city of half a million people was actually smoke from the blazes.

‘Fast response’

The Brazilian military operations came after widespread criticism of Bolsonaro’s handling of the crisis.

Azevedo defended the government response, saying that it was “very fast”.

“It shows the concern of Bolsonaro’s government about this issue,” he said.

The defence minister noted US President Trump’s offer, on Twitter, to help Brazil fight the fires but said there had been no further contact on the matter.

“Any help is welcome in respect to the fires,” he added.

Aerial picture showing smoke from a two-kilometre-long stretch of fire billowing from the Amazon rainforest about 65 km from Porto Velho [File: AFP]

Alfredo Sirkis, executive director of think-tank Brazil Climate Center and a founder of Brazil’s Green Party, said while he supported military involvement, he doubted that anyone would be able to put out the fires.

“Once you have a huge forest fire like that, especially when you don’t have all the kind of forest fire-fighting equipment that you have in places like the US or Portugal, it’s difficult to extinguish,” he told Reuters.

“They’ll only be extinguished by themselves depending on the weather conditions.”

Environmental specialists say the fires are coming amid increasing deforestation in the Amazon region, which in July took place at a rate four times that of the same month in 2018, according to data from INPE.

Bolsonaro has previously attacked the institute, describing its data as lies and engineering the sacking of its head.

EU-Mercosur trade deal

The blazes have stirred outrage globally and are a major topic of concern at the G7 meeting in Biarritz, France. The growing crisis also threatens to torpedo a trade deal between the European Union and South American countries, including Brazil, that took 20 years to negotiate.

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, told reporters at the G7 that it was hard to imagine European countries ratifying a trade pact with the Mercosur bloc as long as Brazil fails to curb the fires ravaging the Amazon.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has taken the lead in pressing his Brazilian counterpart over the fires, had earlier accused Bolsonaro of lying to him about Brazil’s stance on climate change.

Official figures show 78,383 forest fires have been recorded in Brazil this year [AFP]

In an escalating war of words between the two leaders, Bolsonaro denounced what he calls Macron’s “colonialist mentality”.

“There are forest fires all over the world, and this cannot be used as a pretext for possible international sanctions,” Bolsonaro said on Friday.

Earlier in the week, he had accused non-governmental organisations of deliberately starting the fires after their funding was cut.

Brazil’s powerful agriculture sector – which strongly supports Bolsonaro – has expressed concerns over the president’s rhetoric, fearing boycotts of their products in key markets.

The Folha de S Paulo newspaper, in an editorial on Saturday, the warned that Bolsonaro’s “bravado” had worsened the crisis caused by accelerating deforestation.

“The damage to [Brazil’s] image is done and it could have important trade repercussions,” it said, adding: “Nationalistic bravado will not win the game this time.”