Fires destroyed 30 million hectares of land in Brazil in 2024, the equivalent area of the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro together. The MapBiomas report reveals that the volume of the areas burned by fires last year increased 62% above historic average, due to huge wildfires and reaching more than 100 thousand hectares in various biomes.
The annual burned area in Brazil since 1985 is 18,5 million hectares. Most of it happened in areas considered to be small: 27% burned among 10 and 250 hectares. In 2024, big territories were caught by fire continuously. A third of the affected area resulted from land plots with more than 100 thousand hectares.
Native vegetation areas were more affected, representing 73% of the total. Forests had 7,7 million destroyed hectares – an increase of 287% in reference to the historic average. Most of the fires were concentrated between August and October. The month of September alone represented a third of the total number of fires.
The data shows that the environmental crises is worsening. The Amazon biome was the center of the fire in 2024, with 15,6 million burned hectares, the biggest record of the historic series that began in 1985. For the first time, forest areas exceeded pastures as main targets of the fires.
Cerrado biome appears right after Amazon, with 10,6 million burned hectares, which represents 35% of the national total. The biome has the biggest historic average of burned areas of the country, with almost 10 million hectares each year, and continues to be the most affected by recurrent fires.
‘Day and night waiting for the fire’
Corumbá, the Brazilian city that is leader in number of fires, has 97% of its territory in Pantanal (another Brazilian biome) and 3% in Cerrado. Although it is part of this ecosystem, the fires in that region are more frequent and more devastating.
In 2024, local farmer Josué Cristaldo almost lost his lung. “It was very affected due to the smoke […] I couldn’t breathe well, and walk, I was short of breath”, he said. He received medical care and needed to reduce his workload for some time. “I couldn’t even walk much”, he remembers. The year of 2024 was one of the most severe ever registered in the Pantanal.
The agriculturist Vera Lúcia Batista knew the need to form a brigade. In 2022, she and other residents of the community received training in partnership with the NGO ‘Ecoa’ and formed a group to combat and prevent fires.
The work begins before fire arrives. “We start to make the ‘aceiros’ (firebreak lines) this month until August so everything is ready in case fire comes”, explains the member of the brigade. ‘Aceiros’ are strips of land in which vegetation is removed to avoid the expansion of the fire.
“The life of the members of the brigade is like that, day and night you have to wait to check if there will be any fire outbreak […] We are on standby around here. We are guardians of our territory and our biome”, says the agriculturist.
If fires grow, deforestation decreases
For the first time since 2019, Brazil registered a decrease in deforestation in all biomes. Around 1.242.000 hectares were deforested in the country during 2024, a reduction of 32,4% in relation to the previous year.
Apart from the reduction, Cerrado is still the leader among biomes with around 652.197 hectares – more than half (52,5%) of the national total. Devastation continues to be concentrated in the agricultural frontier of Matopiba, a region that includes the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí e Bahia.
The area is dominated by agribusiness. Currently, more than 25 million hectares are destined for agriculture production, with a focus on soy and cattle raising.
