A “smoke screen” caused by the out-of-control fires in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil hit southern neighbors Argentina and Uruguay this week, local Argentine and Uruguayan media reported on Monday morning.
Annual fires are a recurring problem for the Amazon rainforest, nearly 60 percent of which lies within Brazil. In 2024, under the administration of radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Amazon rainforest is experiencing the most severe fires in over a decade.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) stated last week that it documented over 53,600 fires there between January 1 and August 27, 2024 — representing an 80-percent increase from that same period in 2023, when 29,826 were recorded. The number of fires registered by WWF during the first eight months of 2024 is the highest for that period of time since 2010. Lula was also president then, serving his second presidential term from 2007 to 2011.
The currently burning Amazon fires spread into Bolivia this week, burning nearly 4 million hectares’ worth of land, according to local environmentalist organizations. The situation prompted Bolivian authorities to declare a state of national emergency over the weekend, issuing health warnings over the smoke affecting the quality of the air and requesting international aid to help fight the fires.
Argentina’s National Weather Service (SMN) issued a warning on Monday of the arrival of the fires’ smoke to the country’s skies. The warning covers the metropolitan area of the capital city of Buenos Aires, municipalities located north of Buenos Aires, and 13 other provinces and regions where “a significant reduction in visibility” could be experienced.
SMN stressed that “phenomena are expected that may represent inconveniences or difficulties in the normal development of social life.” As a result of the smoke, the weather service suggested that citizens in the affected areas avoid outdoor activities and take respiratory and eye protection measures.
The Argentine weather service explained that the smoke is expected to arrive in the country on Monday but added that the arrival of a front of Patagonian winds could dissipate the smoke sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday.
SMN meteorologist Cindy Fernandez told the local newspaper La Nación that those who could be the most affected by the smoke cloud are people with respiratory problems.
“It is very possible that the smoke will be felt in the city and its surroundings. Especially because it will not only move up high but will also go to the surface and this is what would be harmful to health,” Fernandez said.
The smoke from the Amazon rainforest fires also reached neighboring Uruguay. Uruguayan meteorologist Mario Bidegain told the local newspaper El País on Monday that the smoke cloud will affect Uruguay through at least Tuesday and warned that it could cover “practically the whole country.”
Bidegain stated that the smoke from the forest fires in Bolivia and Brazil already affected Uruguay during the first week of September but explained that, “as weather conditions changed, because winds became south-southwest due to the passage of a cold front, this caused the smoke to move away and not be over Uruguay.”
The meteorologist warned that the conditions that caused the arrival of smoke to the national territory are returning, stressing that wind conditions could cause the smoke cloud to affect the capital city of Montevideo.
“It could very well reach the west coast, cover practically all of Uruguay and even reach as far as Buenos Aires,” Bidegain said.
“On Tuesday we have a worsening of the weather, a new cold front, and what this cold air mass would do is sweep the entire territory and move the smoke away again,” Bidegain continued. “Until next Tuesday we have a high probability that we will be under this blanket of smoke.”
Wildfires in the Amazon rainforest have been a recurring political subject for Brazil, both nationally and internationally. In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron and American celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio and singer Madonna spearheaded a campaign against then-President Jair Bolsonaro using old pictures of the rainforest to accuse him of causing an emergency in the area.
In 2021, DiCaprio joined other celebrities such as Mark Ruffalo, Alec Baldwin, and Katy Perry in pressuring U.S. President Joe Biden to take action against Bolsonaro for the purported “threat” that he and his policies allegedly posed to the rainforest.
Despite the record-breaking number of fires in the rainforest this year and the dire emergency situation, celebrities who repeatedly condemned Bolsonaro during his tenure have not similarly condemned Lula as of press time.
Ruffalo, a self-proclaimed “climate justice advocate” as per his Twitter profile, has made no public mention of the Amazon fires on his social media, instead focusing on commenting on Israel’s war in Gaza and participating in events in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
DiCaprio, another self-described “environmentalist,” does not appear to have publicly commented on the current wildfires at press time.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
