The fires in the Amazon have now been among the top news stories in the world because it is currently such an iconic location that is crucial to the global ecosystem. However, it's important to note that those events come at a time where many other fires are burning around the world, some even larger and more widespread than those of the Amazon.
The areas affected include Angola, Congo, Greece, Spain, Alaska, and Siberia.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, this fire season has been unprecedented for the Arctic Circle, with more than 100 major fires reported in that region.
Unprecedented #wildfires in #Arctic. Over past 6 weeks @CopernicusEU #Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) has tracked more than 100 intense fires in the Arctic Circle. In June alone, these fires emitted 50 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere = Sweden’s total annual emissions. pic.twitter.com/poQWzutgAA
— WMO | OMM (@WMO) July 12, 2019
In Siberia, it's been reported that more than 21,000 square miles of the forest were recently damaged. Several reports, from Global News and other outlets, indicate that these fires were started intentionally to conceal illegal logging activities, yet these reports haven't been confirmed.
Also, in August 2019, the Greek island of Evia was under a state of emergency after multiple large fires broke out.
Weather Source
Earlier in August, a massive fire in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Territory damaged more than one million hectares of forest.
Alaska and Greenland, known for their cold temperatures, have also faced severe fires in summer 2019. In August 2019, Denmark sent a team of firefighters to Greenland to put out massive fires that were spreading across the island nation.
A fire in Spain’s Canary Islands cased 9,000 people to evacuate. Another Spanish island off the northern coast of Africa, Gran Canaria, lost approximately 46,000 square miles of woodland due to fires in 2019.
At the moment, it seems the largest fires in the world are currently burning in Angola, Africa.
According to MODIS satellite data analyzed by Weather Source, 6,902 fires broke out in Angola in the 48 hours between August 21st and 23rd 2019. During the same time, 3,395 fires were reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 2,127 in Brazil.
NASA
Summer wildfires are not uncommon in Central Africa, but once again, many of these fires are intentionally set by humans attempting to clear space for agriculture businesses.
As data from the NASA Aqua satellite reported, over 67,000 fires were seen in just one week during June 2018.
Experts believe that most of these fires are the result of a farming technique, known as slash and burn, which as the name implies, involves the burning of forest to make room for crops. There are other far less-reckless ways of getting the job done, but burning everything down happens to be the fastest and the cheapest. The ash also provides nutrients to the crops that will eventually be planted, but environmentalists warn that this practice could cause deforestation, soil erosion and a loss of biodiversity.
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