File photo from July 2024: an Ibama Prevfogo brigade member at a wildfire in Brazil (Photo: Augusto Dauster/Ibama, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

BRAZIL · ENVIRONMENT

Brazil is sending 522 firefighters and 13 aircraft to the northern state of Pará, where satellites detect far more Amazon fires than a year ago. Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco announced the reinforcements on Thursday 22 October, and the Amazon stores carbon that shapes the world’s climate, which matters to US readers.

The fires come as Brazil prepares for the runoff vote on Sunday 25 October, and the environment has become a talking point in the Brazil election 2026 campaign. This report sticks to the fire figures and the official statements, and it treats every claim about who started the fires as unproven.

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What Brazil Announced on Thursday

The operation concentrates on the Chapadão area on the border of the municipalities of Santarém and Ururá, near state highway PA-370 and the Transamazonian highway, Agência Brasil reported. Six Air Tractor water-dropping planes will be based in Santarém, and the data presented showed 62 forest fires in the Chapadão area.

The ministry said the fires cluster on irregular occupations of land-reform settlements and legal reserves, where it found intentional use of fire as a land-management practice. Capobianco said the National Security Force was called in to support brigade crews after events that hampered their work.

Pará had 321 active fire events across 76 municipalities on Thursday, and INPE counted 2,991 heat points in the state from 14 to 20 October. Altamira declared an emergency covering urban, rural and riverside areas, and 16 municipalities in the state have declared emergencies over drought and fire.

The government also sent Congress provisional measure 1398/26 on Wednesday 21 October, an emergency credit of R$300 million (about US$59.6 million at the central bank’s 23 October rate of R$5.0377 per dollar) for civil defence, mainly to fight the rise in fires. It cited scarce rain linked to El Niño and the limited capacity of municipalities to respond.

Prevfogo brigade members after a firefighting operation in the Tenharim/Marmelos Indigenous Land, Amazonas state, in August or September 2024 (Photo: Mayangdi Inzaulgarat/Ibama, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

How Amazon Fires Compare With Last Year

INPE publishes its heat-point files openly, and we counted the points from its reference satellite series for 1 to 23 October 2026 and for the same days of 2025. Pará logged 8,819 points against 2,404, about 3.7 times as many, while the Amazon biome as a whole logged 13,772 against 5,409, about 2.5 times.

Amazonas state logged 2,051 against 709, about 2.9 times, and Brazil as a whole logged 24,102 against 20,663, up about 17%. The jump is therefore concentrated in the northern Amazon states rather than spread evenly across the country.

Within Pará, the municipalities with the most points in our count were São Félix do Xingu with 811, Altamira with 644 and Ururá with 639. CNN Brasil reported on 20 October that Pará held 38% of Brazil’s active fires on 18 and 19 October, and that its 7,309 points in the first 19 days of October already topped any full month of 2026.

A heat point is not a count of separate fires or of burned area. Our figures are our own calculation from INPE’s public files read on 24 October, using one satellite series that gives lower totals than counts adding every satellite.

Smoke, Drought and El Niño

CNN Brasil reported on 14 October, citing a ClimaInfo bulletin, that a strengthening El Niño was worsening drought in northern Brazil, with 15,449 heat points in the Amazon from 13 September to 12 October, 2.4 times the same period last year. The national water agency said the area in moderate drought in Pará rose from 13% to 22%, the most severe reading in the state since January 2025, CNN Brasil added.

Agência Brasil reported that on Monday 19 October the air in Santarém was rated very unhealthy, with fine-particle pollution of 185 micrograms per cubic metre against a Brazilian daily limit of 32. The same day Manaus air was rated unhealthy on the IQAir platform.

Amazonas health surveillance counted 541 public-network visits for smoke exposure from early October to 14 October, Agência Brasil reported. The national health-service force (Força Nacional do SUS) has opened a regional base in Manaus to support care.

Investigators Look at Who Lit the Fires

The federal police opened nine inquiries into possible criminal fires in Amazonas, CNN Brasil reported on 21 October, covering areas such as Manaus and Iranduba. At least 41 Amazonas municipalities are in a state of emergency, according to the same report.

On Thursday Capobianco said police are probing a possible criminal action in the Chapadão area. He added that the government is not claiming criminal fires have been proven, only that the matter is under investigation.

Greenpeace Brazil said on 22 October that the jump in fires after the 4 October first round resembles the 2019 “Day of Fire” in Pará, when federal police said farmers had arranged criminal burns, and that it may have been orchestrated by environmental criminals with electoral motives. That is the group’s allegation, based on INPE data and burned-area maps from a federal university lab, and none of the official sources reviewed confirms it.

Greenpeace also put burned area in Pará at 912,534 hectares (about 2.3 million acres) from 1 to 20 October, up 503% on a year earlier, and noted that 2026 still has the second-lowest Amazon heat-point total since 2019, at 41,373 through 20 October. We did not verify the burned-area figures independently.

Deforestation Fell Even as Fires Rose

ICMBio said on Friday 23 October that clearing inside federal protected areas of the Legal Amazon fell 17% in 2026 to 111 square kilometres (about 43 square miles), from 134 in 2025, using INPE satellite data. That is the lowest level since the count began in 2008 and 82% below the 2021 peak of 618 square kilometres.

In the Cerrado savanna, clearing inside federal reserves fell 8% to 47 square kilometres, while clearing across the whole biome fell 23%, Agência Brasil reported. Our earlier report on Brazil Deforestation Cut Valued at US$216bn covers a separate study of the value of that decline, which is a different measure from Amazon fires.

What It Means for You

For US readers, the Amazon’s fate affects the global carbon balance, and an INPE-led study reported by Agência Brasil put emissions at 408 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year in wet, low-activity years against 1.58 to 1.80 billion tonnes in years of heavy clearing or hot, dry burning. The study found that drought can amplify the carbon released by human activity such as clearing and burning.

Travellers to Manaus or the Santarém area should check local air-quality warnings, since clinics in Amazonas have treated hundreds of people for smoke exposure. Our guides Brazil Natural Resources Explained 2026 and Brazil Explained 2026 explain the region, its economy and its resources.

What Is Not Known

No official source reviewed says who started the fires in Pará, and no charges have been reported. The ministry’s statement that fires cluster on irregular occupations is an official finding of where fires sit, not a finding about who lit them.

The burned-area figures come from Greenpeace and a university lab, and we could not verify them, while heat points are an indicator rather than a measure of area. The ministry’s own press page could not be opened, so the 22 October announcement rests on Agência Brasil’s report of the minister’s news conference.

It is also unclear when rain will return, since Agência Brasil reported that El Niño should deepen the dry season in the north in coming months. Daily INPE counts will show whether the Amazon fires in Pará are easing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many firefighters is Brazil sending to the Amazon fires?

The environment ministry said 522 brigade members from Ibama and ICMBio are deployed, with 41 vehicles and 13 aircraft. The operation focuses on the Chapadão area of western Pará.

Are Amazon fires higher than last year?

In Pará, INPE reference-satellite heat points for 1 to 23 October were 8,819 against 2,404 a year earlier, our count shows. Across Brazil the rise was about 17%.

Who started the Amazon fires in Pará?

No official source reviewed has said. Police are investigating, and the environment minister said the government is not claiming criminal fires have been proven.

Is Amazon deforestation also rising?

No, ICMBio reported that clearing inside federal protected areas of the Legal Amazon fell 17% in 2026 to 111 square kilometres. Fires and clearing measure different things, and this year’s fires track drought.

Does El Niño explain the fires?

It is a main factor cited by the government and by CNN Brasil, which reported drought worsening under a strengthening El Niño. Officials also point to intentional burning on irregular land occupations, which remains under investigation.

Sources: Agência Brasil, 22 October 2026; Agência Brasil on ICMBio, 23 October 2026; Agência Brasil on air quality, 19 October 2026; Agência Brasil on health response, October 2026; Agência Brasil on carbon study, October 2026; CNN Brasil, 14 October 2026; CNN Brasil, 20 October 2026; CNN Brasil, 21 October 2026; Greenpeace Brazil, 22 October 2026; INPE heat-point files, read 24 October 2026; Central Bank of Brazil exchange rate, 23 October 2026.

This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief