Amazon fires: Brazil sends warplanes to dump water on devastating blaze after international outcry

Jair Bolsonaro initially claimed government lacked resources to tackle flames

Brazilian warplanes have started dumping water on fires across the Amazon, as President Jair Bolsonaro’s government scrambles to contain the damage following an international outcry.

A video posted by Brazil’s Defence Ministry showed a military plane pumping thousands of litres of water as it passed through clouds of smoke close to a forest canopy in Rondonia state.

Mr Bolsonaro, the country’s far-right president, has authorised military operations in seven states. The details of most initiatives remain unclear.

Environmental groups believe the Amazon fires have been deliberately started, as people try and clear the land, and Mr Bolsonaro has been accused of tacitly encouraging the destruction.

“What he has done through his words and deeds is given the go ahead to farmers and illegal loggers, encouraging them into indigenous communities,” Richard George, head of forests at Greenpeace, previously told The Independent. Mr Bolsanaro has claimed, without evidence, that the fires could have been set by non-governmental groups who have had their funding taken away by his government.

On Friday, after facing international pressure, Brazil’s president said he would send the army in to combat the flames. Many Brazilians took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro and other cities on Sunday to demand the administration do more. Some held banners that read: “Bol$onaro is burning our future”.

The Defence Ministry said 44,000 troops were available in Brazil’s northern Amazon region but did not say how many would be used where and what they would do.

The response comes as leaders of countries in the Group of Seven (G7) nations currently meeting in France expressed grave concerns over the fires.

Meanwhile, actor Leonardo DiCaprio has called the crisis “incredibly tragic” as he urged governments to do more. DiCaprio was speaking a day after Earth Alliance, an initiative he founded with philanthropists Laurene Powell Jobs and Brian Sheth, launched a $5m emergency fund to help preserve the rainforest.

“There is a major tragedy going on worldwide because of climate change and what’s going on in the Amazon, which is really the lungs of the earth and vital to protecting us in the future,” he told Reuters.

“We’re trying to perpetuate others to be involved, informed and contribute if they can,” he said, speaking on the red carpet at the Japan premiere of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on Monday.

Nearly 80,000 fires have been registered across Brazil, the highest since at least 2013, according to space research agency INPE.

The blazes have been blamed for a plume of smoke which blocked out the sun over Sao Paulo last week.

The devastating fires have prompted global concern over the Amazon, which provides 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen supply.

The largest rainforest in the world, it is vital for slowing down the pace of global warming.

Mr Bolsonaro initially claimed that his government lacked the resources to tackle the blaze.

Additional reporting by agencies