Sawt Falasteen - Brazil probing 'criminal' origin of forest fires: minister to AFP

The northwestern state of Amazonas, home to a huge chunk of the world's largest rainforest, has recorded almost double the wildfires so far in October as in the whole of October last year.

Billowing smoke has shrouded the state capital Manaus for days, while the El Nino climate phenomenon threatens to exacerbate drought in the Amazon.

On Sunday, Environment Minister Joao Paulo Capobianco flew over the affected areas, sighting hundreds of fires in the middle of the protected forest.

The location of the fires suggested they were not caused by uncontrolled agricultural activity, as is common in the Amazon, but rather "a deliberate criminal act" aiming to damage the forest and illegally seize land, Capobianco said.

Those responsible "appear to be acting in an organized and intense manner," he said in an interview.

"There is a possibility of a direct connection to the election period," the minister added, although that remains a theory for now.

"The fact that some prominent politicians have used that information in their campaign propaganda suggests there is a potential connection," Capobianco said, without elaborating.

Sao Paulo state's conservative Governor Tarcisio de Freitas recently criticized the fires in the Amazon, accusing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's leftist administration of negligence.

Lula will face right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of jailed ex-leader Jair Bolsonaro, in a presidential runoff on October 25.

Capobianco is traveling to Manaus again on Wednesday, accompanied by the justice minister, federal police investigators, and intelligence agents to "identify those responsible."

State police are also investigating the fires.

- Smoke-veiled city -

Amazonas has recorded 1,608 fire outbreaks so far this month, compared with 874 for the entire month of October 2025, satellite data from the National Institute for Space Research shows.

And there were over 3,700 outbreaks in September, nearly four times as many as one year earlier.

However, this year's figures are being compared to historically low levels in 2025.

Smoke has severely worsened air quality in Manaus, a city of 2.3 million people, and authorities shuttered public schools on Friday.

The federal government, which has dispatched 11 aircraft and around 300 firefighters to the zone, expects to reverse the situation "in the coming days," Capobianco said.

The minister stressed that deforestation in the Amazon fell by half between 2022 and 2025.

P.Tamimi--SF-PST