The Brazilian Amazon recorded 18,907 forest fires in October, a jump of 140.3% compared to the same month in 2025 (7,868), amid the worsening drought caused by the El Niño phenomenon and the health crisis faced by Manaus, the largest city in the region, due to the dense smoke covering it.
[Amazon Fires Push Brazil Air Pollution to Very Unhealthy Levels: Brazilian Amazon Fires Increased by 140% in October](https://www.telesurenglish.net/brazilian-amazon-fires-increased-by-140-in-october/)
The number of fires in the world’s largest tropical forest in October was the highest for a month in just over two years, since the 41,463 recorded in September 2024, according to data released this Sunday by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE, for its acronym in Portuguese).
According to the state agency, which daily measures the number of heat sources throughout Brazil with the help of satellite images, the fires accumulated this year in the Amazon until October already exceed those recorded in all of 2025 (43,131).
The Amazon is burning,and El Niño is helping set the stage.Drought is turning escaped human-started fires into uncontrolled forest fires. NASA researchers even found ~40% more fires near Santarém than standard satellite counts detected.Satellites can miss fires beneath the canopy pic.twitter.com/GmeBtEWkyS
— Quarkonian (@TheQuarkonian) October 31, 2026
Between January and October of this year, 48,487 fires were counted, an increase of 70% compared to the same period last year.
Despite the sharp increase, the number of fires this year is not comparable to that of 2024, when Brazil, also impacted by the El Niño phenomenon, experienced its worst drought in 50 years and a strong heat wave hit the Amazon, generating more than 140,000 fire points.
Specialists attribute the increase in fire points this year to the effects of the El Niño phenomenon, which are already beginning to be felt in the region and which, if it becomes an extreme event as predicted, could cause a new intense drought and significantly impact climatic conditions in the forest.
The Brazilian government also attributes the increase in fires to premeditated actions by farmers interested in increasing their cultivation areas and which multiplied between the first and second rounds of the presidential elections (between October 4 and 25), when a victory for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro was expected.
In its efforts to combat the fires, the Brazilian Government sent eleven aircraft and some 300 firefighters to the Amazon to reinforce the work carried out by regional authorities.
Smoke from fires in the states of Amazonas and Pará has enveloped Manaus for days, a city of some 2.3 million inhabitants that has recorded some of the worst air quality levels in Brazil in recent days.
The largest city in the Amazon had to suspend in-person activities in schools and universities due to the “appalling” air quality on different days in October.
Despite the rains of recent days, the Civil Defense of Amazonas issued an alert on Saturday due to the worsening of air quality in some cities in this state, mainly Parintins, where the level of contamination was classified as critical, and Manaus.
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