Amazon Forest Fire – The Burning Lungs of Earth

For the past few years, we all are getting news from all over the globe about forest fires. Every year it seems like there’s another disastrous wildfire somewhere. The most common calamity in forests all over the world is a forest fire and they are as old as the forest themselves. They possess a threat not only to forest wealth but also to the entire ecology and environment.

We have experienced some of the biggest and dangerous wildfires in the past few years like the Australian bush fire in 2020 and the Amazon forest fire in 2019. Around 906,000 forest area was burnt to ashes.

 

Possible reasons for Amazon forest fire

 

There was a significant increase in reports from the Amazon forest in August 2019 about forest fires, about 80,000 fires and it was a nearly 80% increase from 2018s reports. According to a study, an article was published in the science magazine that the most possible and undoubtful reason for this was a sharp rise in deforestation. 

 

Further investigations revealed that these are intentional fires to clear the forest area to make agricultural land and further agricultural development. As a result, president Jair Bolsonaro announced a 60-day ban on setting fires to clear land for any purpose except for those who have got clearance by environmental authorities to use control burning to prevent wildfires

Why Amazon fire is a big deal?

 

Amazon forest alone produces around 20% of the earth’s oxygen and also cleans the foiled air by absorbing carbon dioxide. Hence, it is known as the lungs of the earth. Almost every being on the planet is benefited by Amazon. It plays a huge role in keeping our planet cool by taking care of greenhouse gases. 

Scientists claimed if destructive human activities don’t stop then amazon will lose its name as a rainforest and will become similar to Savanna. The amount of oxygen produced by it will decrease drastically and along with forest whole earth will be pushed into a climate catastrophe.

 

Amazon forest is so vast that is home to a large number of species and many of them are exclusive to amazon only. Around one in every ten of all animal species on earth call amazon their home. So, if anything is affecting the forest it will also affect the fauna living there. Firstly, a large number of animals died because of fire, and after that smoke and ash made them die as well.

 

So, all these reasons made it clear that the Amazon forest fire was atopic to be discussed and why the safety of Amazon is important?

 

How Amazon fire was controlled?

 

After weeks of struggle by military men, forest rangers, firefighters, and other peoples fire was controlled. According to reports around 10,400 firefighters were spread across 5.5 million square kilometers of forest. At a time, it was observed that government don’t have the appropriate structure to prevent, control, and fight wildfires in time. 

Firefighting planes, helicopters were arranged to help fight wildfires that are at places where humans will face difficulty to reach. B747-400 supertankers aircraft were used that can carry around 20,000 gallons of fire extinguishing substance at once.

 

Conclusion

 

After the fire was controlled, the government announced 4 months ban on setting fire for all purposes. It made people think about the importance of natural gifts they got in form of a forest. It was said by environmental scientists that the best firefighting technique to prevent them in the first place- by controlling deforestation, managing agricultural and other human activities. 

Written By - Dewang Singh

Edited By - Anamika Malik