Wildfires in Brazil scorched an area greater than the size of Italy in 2024, climbing by 79pc from the prior year, burning large swaths of the Amazon rainforest and hindering sugarcane and other farm output.
The wildfires last year spread out over 30.8mn hectares (ha) (76mn acres), up by 13.6mn ha from a year earlier and rising to a five-year high, according to environmental network MapBiomas' fire monitor researching program. The surge in wildfires may be related to a wider drought season influenced by the El Nino climate phenomenon in 2023-2024, researchers said.
Sugarcane producers association Orplana estimated that around 414,000ha of crop lands in central-southern states — Brazil's largest sugarcane producing area — were damaged by wildfires, which led to R2.67bn ($485.7mn) in financial losses. Dryer weather in the region in April-October last year hindered sugarcane development, while a surge in wildfires damaged plants in different stages of regrowth and downsized the 2025-26 season's output.
Wildfires hit northern Para state the most last year, as 7.3mn ha were burnt. Central-western Mato Grosso and northern Tocantins states followed, with 6.8mn ha and 2.7mn ha of burnt areas, respectively.
Amazon biome
Brazil's Amazon biome lost over 17.6mn ha to wildfires in 2024, which accounts for 58pc of the country's total burnt area, up by 62pc from 10.8mn ha a year before.
The changes in climate patterns are alarming considering that fires do not occur naturally inthe Amazon as is the case in other biomes, MapBiomas' researcher Felipe Martenexen said.
Brazil lost 3.6pc — or 1.1mn ha — of its areas to fires in December 2024, down from 1.58mn ha in the same period a year earlier. The Amazon biome represented 88pc of total wildfires in the month, reaching 964,000ha of burnt land. Of that, 37.5pc of damage accounted for forest areas.
Brazil's Cerrado biome, which comprises savanah grasslands and forest and makes up 25pc of national land — lost 9.7mn ha to wildfires last year, up by almost 92pc from 2023. Besides natural fire outbreaks in the region, an extended drought seasonincreased burnt areas, MapBiomas said.
Wildfire-damaged areas in southern Brazil's Pampa biome, or low grasslands, dropped by 98pc to 3,860ha last year from around 7,640ha in 2023, mostly because of historic floods in May prompted by El Nino's effects in the region during the first half of 2024.
Brazil's Caatinga biome, or seasonally dry tropical forest, in the northeast lost around 330,000ha in burnt areas in 2024, down by 47pc from 630,115ha a year before.
Burnt areas in the central-western Pantanal biome, or tropical wetland, stood at 1.9mn ha last year, more than doubling from 672,600ha in 2023.
The Atlantic forest biome lost 1mn ha to wildfires in the same period, more than fivefold from the nearly 183,900ha a year earlier.
Amazon fund
Brazil's Bndes development bank will send R45mn from its Amazon fund to firefighters in Mato Grosso to combat wildfires and prevent deforestation, it said today.
Mato Grosso is the eight state to receive money from the Amazon fund to combat wildfires and deforestation, Bndes said. The other states are Rondonia, Acre, Amapa, Para, Roraima, Amazonas and Maranhao. In total, the Amazon fund has sent R405mn to these states.
The Amazon fund — created by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2008, decommissioned by Jair Bolsonaro during his presidency in 2019-2022 and reactivated by Lula again in 2023 — supports 119 projects and has R2.99bn in its portfolio. Norway, Germany, the US, the UK, Switzerland, Japan and Denmark have also contributed to the fund.
