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MAAP #129: Amazon Fires 2020 – Recap of Another Intense Fire Year

Posted on November 30, 2020September 11, 2025 by dcadmin

Base Map. Major Amazon fires 2020 (orange dots) within Amazon watershed (blue line). Data: MAAP.

Following the intense Amazon fire season of 2019 that made international headlines, here we report another major fire year in 2020.

Using the novel data from our real-time Amazon Fires Monitoring app,* we documented over 2,500 major fires across the Amazon in 2020 (see Base Map).

The vast majority (88%) of the major fires were in the Brazilian Amazon, followed by the Bolivian Amazon (8%) and Peruvian Amazon (4%). No major fires were detected in the other Amazonian countries.*

We highlight several major headlines:

In the Brazilian Amazon, we detected 2,250 major fires. Most (51%) burned recently deforested areas, defined as fires in areas previously cleared between 2018 and 2020. These fires burned an estimated 1.8 million acres, emphasizing the current high deforestation rates in Brazil. In September, there was a major spike in forest fires, impacting vast areas of standing forest (over 5 million acres).
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In the Bolivian Amazon, we detected 205 major fires. The vast majority (88%) burned in Amazonian savanna and dry forest ecosystems. Notably, a quarter of these fires burned within protected areas.
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In the Peruvian Amazon, we detected 116 major fires. There were three major types: 41% burned high elevation grasslands (impacting 26,000 acres), 39% burned recently deforested areas, and 17% burned standing forest (impacting 6,700 acres).
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The vast majority of the major fires across all three countries were likely human-caused and illegal, in violation of governmental fire management regulations and moratoriums.
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The app was only fully implemented in 2020, so we do not have comparable data for 2019. However, our extensive analysis of satellite imagery indicates that, in the Brazilian Amazon, both 2019 and 2020 had in common the extensive burning of recently deforested areas. The late season shift to forest fires seemed much more intense in 2020. In the Bolivian Amazon, both 2019 and 2020 had in common the extensive burning of Amazon savannas and dry forests.

See below for additional and more detailed findings for each country. Also, check out Mongabay’s real-time Brazilian Amazon fire tracker based on our analysis.

Brazilian Amazon

Image 1. Major fire burning recently deforested area in Brazilian Amazon (Mato Grosso). Data: Planet.

We emphasize the following additional findings for the Brazilian Amazon:

Of the 2,250 major fires, over half (51%) burned recently deforested areas, defined as areas where the forest was previously cleared between 2018 and 2020 prior to burning (Image 1). These fires burned an estimated 1.8 million acres (742,000 hectares), highlighting the current high deforestation rates in Brazil.
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A striking number (40%) were forest fires, defined here as human-caused fires in standing forest. A rough initial estimate suggests that 5.4 million acres (2.2 million hectares) of Amazon forest burned.
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Over half (51%) occurred in September, followed by August and October (25% and 15%, respectively). September was also when we documented a major shift from fires in recently deforested areas to forest fires.
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An important number of major fires (12%) occurred within indigenous territories and protected areas. The most impacted were Xingu and Kayapó Indigenous Territories, Jamanxim National Forest, and Nascentes da Serra do Cachimbo Biological Reserve.
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The vast majority of the major fires (97%) appear to be illegal, occurring after the Amazon fire moratoriums established in July (the government established a 4-month national fire moratorium starting July 15).
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Pará (38%) and Mato Grosso (31%) states had the most fires, followed by Amazonas (15%), Rondônia (11%), and Acre (4%).

Bolivian Amazon

Image 2. Major fire in Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, in the Bolivian Amazon. Data: Planet.

We emphasize the following additional findings for the Bolivian Amazon:

Of the 2015 major fires, many (46%) occurred in Amazon savannas.
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Another 42% of the fires were located in forests, mostly in the dry forests of the Chiquitano. Note, in November there was a major spike in these fires.
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Importantly, 25% of the major fires were in protected areas. The most impacted were Noel Kempff Mercado National Park (Image 2), Copaibo Municipal Protected Area, Iténez National Park, Keneth Lee Reserve, Rios Blanco y Negro Wildlife Reserve, and Pampas del Río Yacuma Integrated Management Natural Area.
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The vast majority of the fires (96%) were likely illegal, occuring after the fire moratoriums (August 3 in Beni and Santa Cruz, followed by October 5 nationally).
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Most of the fires occurred in the department of Beni (51%), followed by Santa Cruz (46%).
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August had the most fires (27%) followed closely by each of September, October, and November (24% each).
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Peruvian Amazon

Image 3. Major fire in higher elevation grassland of the Peruvian Amazon. Data: Planet.

We emphasize the following additional findings for the Peruvian Amazon:

Of the 116 major fires, many (39%) burned recently deforested areas. Although the pattern is similar to the Brazilian Amazon, the burned (and previously deforested) areas are much smaller (4,660 vs 1.8 million acres).
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There were also numerous major fires (41%) in higher elevation grasslands across several regions (Image 3). These fires impacted 26,000 acres (10,000 hectares). We likely underestimated the number of these fires because, due to the lack of biomass in these ecosystems, they didn’t always register as a major fire in the app.
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Another 17% were forest fires, impacting 6,700 acres (2,700 hectares).
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All of the fires in the Peruvian were likely illegal, according to Peruvian fire management regulations.
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15 regions experienced major fires, reflecting the mix of both grassland and forest fires. The regions with the most fires were Madre de Dios (23%), Ucayali (12%) and Junin (11%).
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November surprisingly had the most major fires (46%), followed by October and September (29% and 22%, respectively).
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*Notes and Methodology

The data is based on our analysis of Amazon Conservation’s novel real-time Amazon Fires Monitoring app. We started daily monitoring in May and continued through November. Specifically, he first major fire was detected on May 28 and the data was updated daily through November 30.

The app displays aerosol emissions as detected by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5 satellite. Elevated aerosol levels indicate the burning of large amounts of biomass, defined here as a “major fire”. In a novel approach, the app combines data from the atmosphere (aerosol emissions in smoke) and the ground (heat anomaly alerts) to effectively detect and visualize major Amazon fires.

When fires burn, they emit gases and aerosols. A new satellite (Sentinel-5P from the European Space Agency) detects these aerosol emissions (aerosol definition: Suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air or another gas). Thus, the major feature of the app is detecting elevated aerosol emissions which in turn indicate the burning of large amounts of biomass. For example, the app distinguishes small fires clearing old fields (and burning little biomass) from larger fires burning recently deforested areas or standing forest (and burning lots of biomass). The spatial resolution of the aerosol data is 7.5 sq km. The high values in the aerosol indices (AI) may also be due to other reasons such as emissions of volcanic ash or desert dust so it is important to cross reference elevated emissions with heat data and optical imagery.

We define “major fire” as one showing elevated aerosol emission levels on the app, thus indicating the burning of elevated levels of biomass. This typically translates to an aerosol index of >1 (or cyan-green to red on the app). To identify the exact source of the elevated emissions, we reduce the intensity of aerosol data in order to see the underlying terrestrial heat-based fire alerts. Typically for major fires, there is a large cluster of alerts. The major fires are then confirmed, and burn areas estimated, using high-resolution satellite imagery from Planet Explorer.

Some additional country-specific notes:

Bolivia – As note above, the high values in the aerosol indices (AI) may also be due to other reasons such as emissions of volcanic ash or desert dust. Hence, some areas, such as the Salar de Uyuni, in western Bolivia, often have orange or red tones.

Colombia – Our daily 2020 monitoring took place from May until November, but Colombia’s drier burning season was likely earlier in the year (January – March). We will be monitoring Colombia during this time frame in 2021.

Acknowledgements

The app was developed and updated daily by Conservación Amazónica (ACCA). The data analysis is led by Amazon Conservation in collaboration with SERVIR Amazonia.

We thank E. Ortiz, A. Folhadella, A. Felix, and G. Palacios for their helpful comments on this report.

Citation

Finer M, Villa L, Vale H, Ariñez A, Nicolau A, Walker K (2020) Amazon Fires 2020 – Recap of Another Intense Fire Year. MAAP: 129.

MAAP #122: Amazon Deforestation 2019

Posted on June 30, 2020September 11, 2025 by dcadmin

Table 1. Primary forest loss for 2019 (red) compared to 2018 (orange). Data: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA, MAAP.

Newly released data for 2019 reveals the loss of over 1.7 million hectares (4.3 million acres) of primary Amazon forest in our 5 country study area (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru).* That is twice the size of Yellowstone National Park.

Table 1 shows 2019 deforestation (red) in relation to 2018 (orange).

Primary forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon (1.29 million hectares) was over 3.5 times higher than the other four countries combined, with a slight increase in 2019 relative to 2018. Many of these areas were cleared in the first half of the year and then burned in August, generating international attention.

Primary forest loss rose sharply in the Bolivian Amazon (222,834 hectares), largely due to uncontrolled fires escaping into the dry forests of the southern Amazon.

Primary forest loss rose slightly in the Peruvian Amazon (161,625 hectares) despite a relatively successful crackdown on illegal gold mining, pointing to small-scale agriculture (and cattle) as the main driver.

On the positive side, primary forest loss decreased in the Colombian Amazon (91,400 hectares) following a major spike following the 2016 peace accords (between the government and FARC). It is worth noting, however, that we have now documented the loss of 444,000 hectares (over a million acres) of primary forest in the Colombian Amazon in the past four years since the peace agreement (see Annex).

*Two important points about the data. First, we use annual forest loss from the University of Maryland to have a consistent source across all five countries. Second, we applied a filter to only include loss of primary forest (see Methodology).

2019 Deforestation Hotspots Map

The Base Map below shows the major 2019 deforestation hotspots across the Amazon.

2019 deforestation hotspots across the Amazon. Data: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA, MAAP.

Many of the major deforestation hotspots were in Brazil. Early in the year, in March, there were uncontrolled fires up north in the state of Roraima. Further south, along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, much of the deforestation occurred in the first half of the year, followed by the high profile fires starting in late July. Note that many of these fires were burning recently deforested areas, and were not uncontrolled forest fires (MAAP #113).

The Brazilian Amazon also experienced escalating gold mining deforestation in indigenous territories (MAAP #116).

Bolivia also had an intense 2019 fire season. Unlike Brazil, many were uncontrolled fires, particularly in the Beni grasslands and Chiquitano dry forests of the southern Bolivian Amazon (MAAP #108).

In Peru, although illegal gold mining deforestation decreased (MAAP #121), small-scale agriculture (including cattle) continues to be a major driver in the central Amazon (MAAP #112) and an emerging driver in the south.

In Colombia, there is an “arc of deforestation” in the northwestern Amazon. This arc includes four protected areas (Tinigua, Chiribiquete and Macarena National Parks, and Nukak National Reserve) and two Indigenous Reserves (Resguardos Indígenas Nukak-Maku and Llanos del Yari-Yaguara II) experiencing substantial deforestation (MAAP #120). One of the main deforestation drivers in the region is conversion to pasture for land grabbing or cattle ranching.

Annex – Colombia peace accord trend

Annex 1. Deforestation of primary forest in the Colombian Amazon, 2015-20. Data: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA, UMD/GLAD. *Until May 2020

Methodology

The baseline forest loss data presented in this report were generated by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) laboratory at the University of Maryland (Hansen et al 2013) and presented by Global Forest Watch. Our study area is strictly what is highlighted in the Base Map.

For our estimate of primary forest loss, we used the annual “forest cover loss” data with density >30% of the “tree cover” from the year 2001. Then we intersected the forest cover loss data with the additional dataset “primary humid tropical forests” as of 2001 (Turubanova et al 2018). For more details on this part of the methodology, see the Technical Blog from Global Forest Watch (Goldman and Weisse 2019).

For boundaries, we used the biogeographical limit (as defined by RAISG) for all countries except Bolivia, where we used the Amazon watershed limit (see Base Map).

All data were processed under the geographical coordinate system WGS 1984. To calculate the areas in metric units, the projection was: Peru and Ecuador UTM 18 South, Bolivia UTM 20 South, Colombia MAGNA-Bogotá, and Brazil Eckert IV.

Lastly, to identify the deforestation hotspots, we conducted a kernel density estimate. This type of analysis calculates the magnitude per unit area of a particular phenomenon, in this case forest cover loss. We conducted this analysis using the Kernel Density tool from Spatial Analyst Tool Box of ArcGIS. We used the following parameters:

Search Radius: 15000 layer units (meters)
Kernel Density Function: Quartic kernel function
Cell Size in the map: 200 x 200 meters (4 hectares)
Everything else was left to the default setting.

For the Base Map, we used the following concentration percentages: Medium: 7%-10%; High: 11%-20%; Very High: >20%.

References

Goldman L, Weisse M (2019) Explicación de la Actualización de Datos de 2018 de Global Forest Watch. https://blog.globalforestwatch.org/data-and-research/blog-tecnico-explicacion-de-la-actualizacion-de-datos-de-2018-de-global-forest-watch

Hansen, M. C., P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, and J. R. G. Townshend. 2013. “High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change.” Science 342 (15 November): 850–53. Data available on-line from: http://earthenginepartners.appspot.com/science-2013-global-forest.

Turubanova S., Potapov P., Tyukavina, A., and Hansen M. (2018) Ongoing primary forest loss in Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Indonesia. Environmental Research Letters https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aacd1c