Satellite images confirm that there are more fires in Africa than in Amazonia

As the world continues with fear and attention to fires in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, satellite images show a much larger number of fires on the African continent.

NASA has stated that Africa is a "continent on fire", where at least 70% of the 10,000 fires that occur in the world occur every day in August. The space agency says that the number is more or less the same year after year.

While French President Emmanuel Macron has announced his intention to launch an international campaign to help countries in sub-Saharan Africa fight fires, experts say the situation is different and that the problem is not clear. not aggravate. Become a danger in the future.

In Angola, fires in Brazil nearly tripled for a few days last week, according to satellite images from NASA, which record more than 6,000 fires in Angola, over 3,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and more. of 2,000 in Brazil.

Although Angola and Congo have the largest number of fires, they generally occur in low-level savannas and fields cultivated by small farmers. They do not therefore pose the same threat to the environment as the fires in the Amazon region. said Sally Archibald, a professor at Wits University in Johannesburg.

"There are questions about fire management in these (African) ecosystems, but fires are part of their ecology," said Archibald, who studies fire management and savanna dynamics.

"In South America, equivalent non-forest forest lands have already been converted primarily to agricultural areas for soybean cultivation, but in Africa, most of them have not been processed."

The fires in the slicks emit carbon dioxide, but the grbad grows back every year, again absorbing much of the carbon in the atmosphere. The

Fires could spread to forests, but they usually go out of their way, said Archibald, unless the trees are cut, which increases the vulnerability of tropical forests.