Wildfire outbreaks increase by 86% in Alagoas.

GazetaWeb - The first half of 2015 saw a significant increase in fire outbreaks in Alagoas. Consolidated satellite images from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that the number of outbreaks in the state rose by 86% between January and June of this year.

In the Northeast, six of the nine states saw an increase in fire outbreaks in the first half of the year: Sergipe (130%), Alagoas (86%), Ceará (77%), Rio Grande do Norte (40%), Maranhão (39%), and Bahia (16%). In the Central-West, Mato Grosso, the state with the highest number of fires and land conflicts in Brazil, saw a 7% increase – 5.097 cases – and its neighbor, Mato Grosso do Sul, a 38% increase – 986 outbreaks.

In a territory that encompasses nearly 70% of the Amazon Rainforest, the world's largest green area, and accounts for 58,5% of the country's fire outbreaks up to August, the North stands out negatively in the records, highlighting the vulnerability to which it is regularly subjected.

Only two of the seven states in the area – Tocantins and Roraima – saw a slight decrease in their fire outbreaks in the first six months of the year: 22% and 7,6%, respectively. Tocantins, in particular, is one of the states with the highest number of these fires, and even with the decrease, there were hundreds of outbreaks between January and June: a total of 2.086 fires.