We have experienced some of the biggest and
dangerous wildfires in the past few years like the Australian bush fire in 2020
and the Amazon forest fire in 2019. Around 906,000 forest area was burnt to
ashes.
Possible reasons for Amazon forest fire
There was a significant increase in reports from the
Amazon forest in August 2019 about forest fires, about 80,000 fires and it was
a nearly 80% increase from 2018s reports. According to a study, an article was
published in the science magazine that the most possible and undoubtful reason
for this was a sharp rise in deforestation.
Further investigations revealed that these are
intentional fires to clear the forest area to make agricultural land and
further agricultural development. As a result, president Jair Bolsonaro
announced a 60-day ban on setting fires to clear land for any purpose except
for those who have got clearance by environmental authorities to use control
burning to prevent wildfires
Why Amazon fire is a big deal?
Amazon forest alone produces around 20% of the earth’s oxygen and also cleans the foiled air by absorbing carbon dioxide. Hence, it is known as the lungs of the earth. Almost every being on the planet is benefited by Amazon. It plays a huge role in keeping our planet cool by taking care of greenhouse gases.
Scientists claimed if destructive
human activities don’t stop then amazon will lose its name as a rainforest and
will become similar to Savanna. The amount of oxygen produced by it will
decrease drastically and along with forest whole earth will be pushed into a
climate catastrophe.
Amazon forest is so vast that is home to a large
number of species and many of them are exclusive to amazon only. Around one in
every ten of all animal species on earth call amazon their home. So, if
anything is affecting the forest it will also affect the fauna living there.
Firstly, a large number of animals died because of fire, and after that smoke
and ash made them die as well.
So, all these reasons made it clear that the Amazon forest fire was atopic to be discussed and why the safety of Amazon is
important?
How Amazon fire was controlled?
After weeks of struggle by military men, forest rangers, firefighters, and other peoples fire was controlled. According to reports around 10,400 firefighters were spread across 5.5 million square kilometers of forest. At a time, it was observed that government don’t have the appropriate structure to prevent, control, and fight wildfires in time.
Firefighting planes, helicopters were arranged to help fight wildfires that are
at places where humans will face difficulty to reach. B747-400 supertankers
aircraft were used that can carry around 20,000 gallons of fire extinguishing
substance at once.
Conclusion
After the fire was controlled, the government announced 4 months ban on setting fire for all purposes. It made people think about the importance of natural gifts they got in form of a forest. It was said by environmental scientists that the best firefighting technique to prevent them in the first place- by controlling deforestation, managing agricultural and other human activities.
Written By - Dewang Singh
Edited By - Anamika Malik
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