The sun shines red through smoke and dust left by the fires in the Amazon rainforest, near Porto Velho, Brazil, on 29 August 2019. Photo: Joedson Alves / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
The sun shines red through smoke and dust left by the fires in the Amazon rainforest, near Porto Velho, Brazil, on 29 August 2019. Photo: Joedson Alves / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

By Jake Spring
27 August 2019

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Weak rainfall is unlikely to extinguish a record number of fires raging in Brazil’s Amazon anytime soon, with pockets of precipitation through 10 September 2019 expected to bring only isolated relief, according to weather data and two experts.

The world’s largest tropical rainforest is being ravaged as the number of blazes recorded across the Brazilian Amazon has risen 79 percent this year through 25 August 2019, according to the country’s space research agency.

The fires are not limited to Brazil, with at least 10,000 square kilometers (about 3,800 square miles) burning in Bolivia near its border with Paraguay and Brazil.

Aerial view of damage caused by wildfires in Otuquis National Park, in the Pantanal ecoregion of Bolivia, on 26 Aug 2019. Photo: Pablo Cozzaglio / AFP / Getty Images
Aerial view of damage caused by wildfires in Otuquis National Park, in the Pantanal ecoregion of Bolivia, on 26 Aug 2019. Photo: Pablo Cozzaglio / AFP / Getty Images

While Brazil’s government has launched a firefighting initiative, deploying troops and military planes, those efforts will only extinguish smaller blazes and help prevent new fires, experts said. Larger infernos can only be put out by rainfall.

The rainy season in the Amazon on average begins in late September and takes weeks to build to widespread rains. […]

The eastern Amazon will stay dry over the next 15 days, with little or no rain in parts of Mato Grosso, Para and Tocantins where fires are up 54 percent to 161 percent compared with last year. [more]

Rain will not extinguish Amazon fires for weeks, weather experts say