HOW TO FIGHT THE WIDESPREAD FIRES IN BRAZIL AND AVOID THEM FROM REPEATING

Fernando Alcoforado*

This article aims to present the necessary short-term, emergency measures to combat the widespread fires currently occurring in Brazil and the necessary medium and long-term measures to prevent events of this nature from happening again in the country. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), smoke from the fires has already covered 60% of the country's territory, with around 40 thousand fires in an area of 5 million square kilometers [FRANCO, Luciana. Queimadas no Brasil: quais s?o as causas e como é o monitoramento (Burnings in Brazil: what are the causes and how is monitoring). Available at <https://globorural.globo.com/clima/noticia/2024/09/queimadas-no-brasil-quais-sao-as-causas-e-como-e-o-monitoramento.ghtml >].?

The burnings and fires that have affected much of Brazil cause harm to health, the economy, and the environment. Fires can cause various damages to people and their properties, causing financial and emotional losses. To prevent or take precautions, it is important to know the main causes of fires. What has caused the increase in fires in Brazil? Deforestation and forest degradation associated with agricultural expansion cause higher temperatures and dry out vegetation, creating more fuel and allowing fires to spread more quickly. The main causes of forest fires are lightning (atmospheric electrical discharges), arson (fires started out of revenge or mental imbalance by pyromaniacs) and clearing fires (in agriculture, pastures or reforestation). Human action is the main cause of forest fires in Brazil, whether intentional or negligently.

How do fires start? Fires arise from the simultaneous combination of fuel, heat and oxygen in the air. When a combustible substance heats up to a certain critical temperature, it will ignite and continue to burn as long as there is fuel, adequate temperature and oxygen in the environment. What is the impact caused by fires? From forest fires to uncontrolled burning, fire has a profound and often detrimental effect on ecosystems, biodiversity and even the global climate. This is clear with all the climate changes we are currently witnessing in Brazil and around the world. The losses from the wave of fires affecting Brazil's agribusiness are estimated at R$2 billion to date.

The exceptionally serious situation currently being experienced by Brazil with widespread fires requires the Lula government to adopt short-term emergency measures, as well as medium- and long-term measures to prevent situations like this from happening again. The Lula government should create, without delay, a task force in conjunction with the state governments most affected by the fires, using all necessary contingents of the Armed Forces, the National Force and state police forces to assist federal, state and municipal civil defense agencies in fighting the fires. In order for the task force to achieve the goal of putting an end to widespread fires in the country, the Lula government should immediately create a special line of credit to finance all necessary emergency actions. In addition, the Lula government should seek the support of the population and, in particular, the private sector in confronting the common enemy: fire. In the case of businesspeople, their collaboration could especially be that of those who have means of transportation and aircraft that can be used to fight fires that destroy properties, jeopardize the environment with their harmful effects on plants and animals, agricultural production and the health of the Brazilian population.

Medium and long-term measures should also be adopted by the Lula government to prevent situations like this from happening again. The exceptional situation Brazil is currently experiencing with widespread fires means that the federal government must implement a new national civil defense structure linked to the Ministry of the Environment, focused on planning and developing strategies to deal with large-scale fires like those currently occurring in Brazil, as well as dealing with the occurrence of extreme weather events. This new structure is necessary because the current civil defense structures in Brazil at the federal, state and municipal levels have proven incapable of dealing with widespread fires like those currently occurring.

State governments and municipal governments in Brazil also have civil defense structures focused on disaster prevention actions, but they do not act in a coordinated manner, either regionally or nationally, to adopt preventive and precautionary measures against large-scale disasters such as the current fires. This is being demonstrated by the fires that are currently occurring in various parts of Brazil, which expose the ineffectiveness of the National Secretariat for Civil Defense and Protection and of state and municipal civil defense agencies, which have not been able to prevent the fires that are still spreading in various parts of Brazil. These structures have not been able to adopt preventive measures to prevent fires and have not been able to combat the fires that currently affect 60% of the country. This means that there is an urgent need to create an effective national civil defense structure that should coordinate the fight against fires such as those currently occurring in Brazil, as well as deal with extreme weather events such as floods.

It is important to note that, in Brazil, there are civil defense actions in the Municipal Governments to deal with disasters, consisting of: 1) the municipal civil defense body that is responsible for the execution, coordination and mobilization of all civil defense actions in the municipality. Its main function is to understand and identify the risks of disasters in the municipality, preparing the population to face them by developing specific plans; 2) the body responsible for the meteorological service responsible for reporting the weather forecast for the city and/or region; and 3) community civil defense centers, which are people who work voluntarily in civil defense activities, to collaborate with the civil defense agency aiming at community participation and preparing it to respond promptly to disasters. It is up to the mayor to determine the creation of the civil defense agency.

In the case of preventing and fighting fires, firefighters play a crucial role, and it is important that they have access to up-to-date and accurate information on the main causes of fires and the appropriate prevention and precautionary measures to be adopted. In order to be effective, the planning process for the new national civil defense structure to be established must necessarily take into account natural events with their instabilities, uncertainties, turbulence and risks. To address the uncertainties regarding future fires such as the current ones and extreme weather events, the national civil defense structure should use the Scenario technique, which considers as a premise that the future is multiple, many futures are possible and the path that leads to many futures is not necessarily unique [GODET, Michel. Manual de Prospectiva Estratégica (Strategic Prospective Manual). Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 1993]. The essential purpose of scenarios is to present a meaningful image of probable futures of extreme weather events and fires like the current ones, as well as unexpected or improbable futures in different time horizons.

In order to deal with future uncertainties, it is essential that prevention and precautionary plans be adopted by the new national civil defense structure. There is no doubt that probable futures with a high probability of occurring are linked to the idea of prevention, which would consist of the national civil defense structure developing plans associated with them. The principle of prevention against fires and extreme weather events would be intended to seek the development of plans to deal with future events that are likely to occur. In the event of unexpected or unlikely futures, or of doubt or uncertainty about their occurrence, the new national civil defense structure must also act by preventing them based on the precautionary principle. In this process, it is necessary for the new national civil defense structure to develop precautionary plans to deal with fires and unexpected or unlikely, but possible, extreme weather events in the future. Precaution is related to potential risks and prevention to proven risks [DUPUY, Jean-Pierre. O tempo das catástrofes (The time of catastrophes). S?o Paulo: Realiza??es Editora, 2011]. Potential risk corresponds to an event that may or may not occur and to which no probability of occurrence can be attributed.

Attention should therefore be paid to the distinction between unexpected or unlikely futures on which the precautionary principle is based and the probable futures associated with the logic of prevention. Prevention in this case means the act of anticipating likely future occurrences of fires and extreme weather events, while precaution, in turn, is equivalent to the advance admission of care in relation to future fires and extreme weather events that are unlikely to occur, but are possible. Economic calculations should serve as the basis for decisions related to prevention and precautionary plans. This means that the costs associated with implementing prevention and precautionary plans must be compared with the cost of losses related to doing nothing to prevent or take precautions against fires such as those currently occurring and extreme weather events. Prevention and precautionary plans should always be implemented when their cost is lower than the losses resulting from doing nothing to deal with fires such as the current ones and extreme weather events.

In view of the above, it is urgent that the Lula government adopt short-term emergency measures, as well as medium- and long-term measures to prevent new fires like the current ones from happening again. The Lula government should create, immediately; a task force in conjunction with the state governments most affected by the fires, using all necessary contingents of the Armed Forces, the National Force and state police forces to assist federal, state and municipal civil defense agencies in fighting the fires. The Lula government should immediately create a special line of credit to finance all necessary emergency actions. In addition, the Lula government should seek the support of the population and, in particular, the private sector in confronting the common enemy, fire. As medium- and long-term measures, the Lula government should urgently create a new and effective national civil defense structure to coordinate the fight against future fires like those currently occurring in Brazil and to deal with extreme weather events such as floods. These structures are absolutely necessary because the current structures in place at the federal, state and municipal levels have not been able to adopt preventive measures to avoid fires and have not been able to combat the fires that currently affect 60% of the national territory.

* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science, IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia and of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer from the UFBA Polytechnic School and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globaliza??o (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,https://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944 , 2003), Globaliza??o e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporanea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, S?o Paulo, 2010), Amaz?nia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, S?o Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econ?mico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudan?a Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revolu??es Científicas, Econ?micas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Inven??o de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017),? Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associa??o Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade amea?ada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, S?o Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribui??o ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press,? Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022), How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chi?in?u, 2023), A revolu??o da educa??o necessária ao Brasil na era contemporanea (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2023), Como construir um mundo de paz, progresso e felicidade para toda a humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2024) and How to build a world of peace, progress and happiness for all humanity (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2024).