Forest fires grow 14% in 2022, report says

In 2022, Brazil lost to fire more than 163 thousand km² of forests, the equivalent to the state of Acre (152,581 km²). The area represents an increase of 14% compared to the 142.8 thousand km² recorded in the previous year. The data are from the Fire Monitor, from the Mapbiomas platform in partnership with IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute).

Most of the fires were registered in the Amazon and in the Cerrado (together, the two biomes have 95% of the destroyed area). The fires were concentrated in countryside and savannah regions (43%), formations that are found in the Cerrado, while 25.4% of the affected area was pastureland.

Considering only December, the increase in fires was 93%, compared with the same month in 2021: there were 3,327 km² of burned area last year, compared with 1,748 km² in 2021.