Nasa warned on Thursday (15) that the drought associated with El Niño is already making the Amazon more vulnerable to wildfires and that the biome may face a long and severe fire season. According to the US space agency, satellites have begun detecting considerable increases in smoke and fire across the region, with direct effects in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, where smoke drove air quality to very poor levels and forced the suspension of classes at schools and universities and of outdoor activities.

According to Nasa scientist Douglas Morton, the fire recorded near Santarém, in western Pará state, and around Manaus is part of a cascade of wildfires that sweeps across the tropics in El Niño years. The agency's note cites a study by Morton on the pattern of droughts and large fires seen during the 2015-16 El Niño, repeated in 2023, when the Amazon went through a historic drought that lowered rivers, dried up waterways, isolated riverside communities and hit the local economy, which depends heavily on river transport.

"Now, in the Amazon, we are seeing the second domino of this chain reaction fall," Morton said, as quoted by Folha de S.Paulo. The first domino, Nasa notes, was the wave of fire that has choked parts of Indonesia since August, with hundreds of homes destroyed by flames in October.

For November and December, the researcher expects even more fire in Roraima, in northern Pará, in Amapá and in areas of neighboring countries such as Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname.

Firefighting and enforcement on the ground

While satellites map the advance of the flames, the response on the ground was reinforced this week. Two aircraft from Prevfogo, the fire prevention and combat unit of Ibama, Brazil's federal environmental agency, arrived on Thursday in Itacoatiara, in the interior of Amazonas, and began operating in the Rio Urubu region, where a fire has been active since late August. According to the fire monitoring panel of Censipam, the federal center that manages the Amazon protection system, the area linked to that blaze exceeds 3,000 hectares, and the flames have already spread into part of the Paraná do Arauató Indigenous Land, traditional territory of the Mura people, G1 Amazonas reported. Hotspots are also still being detected in Vila de Lindóia and in the Sauim-de-Coleira Sustainable Development Reserve, near the community of Novo Remanso.

Enforcement has responded as well. Itacoatiara's municipal environment secretariat has fined 15 people suspected of setting forest fires, with penalties totaling more than R$ 300,000 (about US$ 56,000), and the cases were referred to the Amazonas state prosecutor's office and the Civil Police. The state also received reinforcement of 29 firefighters and nine vehicles from the National Force, a federal public security contingent, while an Amazonas Civil Defense aircraft operates in the region, using Itacoatiara's airport as a support base.

In Manaus, the smoke began to ease after a week that pushed the city to the top of Brazil's worst air quality ranking. On Friday morning (16), the city's air quality index stood at 85, rated moderate, according to G1. A meteorologist interviewed by the outlet noted that Manaus has faced cycles of intense smoke for a decade, and that severity depends on the number of fires and on the lack of rain and atmospheric conditions that keep pollutants from dispersing.