Amazon Wildfires Surge as NASA Warns Worst May Be Ahead

The Amazon wildfires are back in the headlines, and scientists say this might only be the opening act. NASA's Earth Observatory reports that a drought tied to El Niño has left the rainforest primed to burn, and that the region has entered the early stages of what researchers expect to be a long, severe fire season.

Smoke over Manaus

Starting in September, satellites picked up sharp jumps in fire activity and smoke emissions across the central and eastern Amazon. The hot zone runs from the forests around Manaus and Santarém all the way to the mouth of the Amazon River, according to NASA Earth Observatory.

On October twelfth, NASA's Aqua satellite captured smoke streaming from both sides of the river as Manaus, a city of more than two million people, got buried in haze. City officials reported extremely poor air quality, with fine particle readings above one hundred thirty-five micrograms per cubic meter. Schools closed, and citywide events and kids' sports leagues were cancelled.

The second domino

NASA scientist Douglas Morton calls what is happening a "cascade" of tropical fire. The pattern starts with drought and peat fires in Indonesia, then moves to this stretch of the Amazon. "Now, in the Amazon, we're seeing the second domino in the cascade fall," Morton said.

The same pattern showed up after the twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen El Niño and again in twenty twenty-three. Indonesia has been smothered in smoke since August, with hundreds of homes razed this month. Morton expects the next wave to hit farther north in November and December, including Roraima, northern Pará and Amapá, plus parts of Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname. The southern Amazon of Brazil and Paraguay is expected to peak around August and September of next year.

Drought and human hands

The rainforest is normally too wet to burn. Lightning ignites less than one percent of fires there, so most of these blazes were started by people. Brazil's national weather institute says Manaus rainfall was ninety-five percent below normal in August and sixty percent below normal in September.

Many of the biggest fires began as routine burns to clear pasture or fields, then escaped into the dry forest understory. University of Maryland researcher Shane Coffield says satellite analysis shows fifty to seventy uncontrolled fires burning in the Santarém region alone. His team also found about forty percent more fires there than standard active-fire counts show, since smoke and canopy can hide low-intensity burns.

That matters because forest fires do especially serious damage in rainforests, where most species are not adapted to flames. Morton noted that many of the same forests burned in twenty twenty-three and twenty fifteen, and that earlier charring leaves them even more flammable this time.

Politics enters the smoke

The timing is awkward for Brazil. Euronews, citing AP, reports that official figures show Amazon deforestation fell to its lowest level since records began in nineteen eighty-eight, down nearly forty-two percent to three thousand three hundred thirty-five square kilometres. Yet fire counts, which were near historic lows earlier this year, have tripled since the first round of the presidential election on October fourth.

According to Euronews, authorities are investigating whether some fires were set on purpose. Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco said officials flying over protected areas spotted fires arranged in a geometric pattern, though it is unclear who is responsible. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro and President Lula face a runoff on October twenty-fifth, and conservation groups warn the result could shape the forest's future.

What to watch next

Morton expects the fires near Santarém and Manaus to keep burning until the rainy season arrives in December or January. His advice is blunt: given how strong this El Niño is, this is the year for people to avoid burning at all costs. For regions further north and south, he says there is still time to prepare.

For Gen Z, the Amazon is a big carbon store and a source of moisture that shapes weather far beyond South America. Watching the Amazon wildfires unfold alongside a record deforestation drop is a reminder that progress can be fragile. More on the planet's changing weather is on our climate emergency page.