Fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest region surge for third month

By Stefanie Eschenbacher

SANTAREM, Brazil (Reuters) - Fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest region surged to the highest number for September in almost a decade and a half, preliminary government data showed on Tuesday, after reaching similar highs in the two preceding months.

A prolonged drought across much of South America, linked to climate change, means the fires in Brazil's Amazon have burned more intensely this year and at times smoke has covered more than half of the continent.

Satellites detected 41,463 fire hot spots in Brazil's Amazon in September, the largest number for that month since 2010, data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) showed.

Fires in the first nine months of the year are also the worst for that period since 2007.

A Reuters reporter traveling on Monday on a flight to Santarem in the Amazonian state of Para saw hundreds of miles of haze. Para also recorded the highest number of fire hot spots for the month of September since 2007, the data showed.

The state is home to the mouth of the Amazon river and will also host the United Nations COP30 climate change summit next year.

Extremely low water levels in the Amazon basin were also clearly visible from the air, with large swathes of sandy river banks left dry.

Fires usually do not occur naturally in the lush Amazon but are set by people to clear land for farming or ranching.

In many cases, criminals have no intention of farming themselves, instead seeking to lay claim to the land to sell for a profit later, said Andre Guimaraes, an executive director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Imazon).

"People are taking advantage of the fact that the forests are more flammable now, to burn them down, and then grab the land later on," he said.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has called the fires "criminal," and the federal police has said it was expanding its efforts to combat environmental crimes in the Amazon and elsewhere.

From January through August, 62,268 square kilometers have burned in Brazil's Amazon, Inpe data showed.

Fires typically peak in the Amazon in August and September when the region is driest, with blazes likely improving in coming weeks as the rainy season arrives.

(Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher in Santarem, Brazil; Editing by Jake Spring and Chizu Nomiyama)