Firefighters test out new tool as Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands burn

Four drones buzz around the smoke-filled skies in the KadiwéuIndigenous Territory in western Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands region where record-setting wildfires are raging. 

A group of about two dozen local firefighters from the territory’s two brigades practice takeoffs and landings with the drones. 

“Our main objective is to prepare [the firefighters] to use these drones to make their work easier and safer,” said trainer Heideger Nacimento, before demonstrating how to hold out a flat palm to create a safe landing zone for the drones. 

These firefighters are among those tasked with finding and fighting wildfires across the 2,000-square-mile Kadiwéuterritory, a sparsely populated area with a rough network of dirt roads and cattle paths.

In Brazil, more than 180,000 fire hot spots have been detected this year, and in the Pantanal, it’s been exceptionally hot and dry. Although the region is typically flooded for much of the year, historic droughts have led to major wildfires, destroying large swaths of vegetation and wildlife. Already, more than 60% of the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory has burned. 

One UK-based, nongovernmental organization, the Environmental Justice Foundation, is testing out an innovative strategy to curtail the fires — providing drones and training to Indigenous communities in Brazil. 

Nacimento, who is a project assistant with the EJF, said that getting to the fires, let alone fighting them, is a challenge. There are a lot of unknowns.

“The problem is, it’s a huge area in a dense forest, so, it’s really complicated to make strategies for how to combat fires,” Nacimento said.

Drones, he said, help with visibility — and to ascertain “where the fires are, the direction that the fires are going to and to evaluate roads to get access to the fires.” 

The EJF has so far conducted two trainings in Kadiwéuand Terana Indigenous lands and hopes to train and equip a total of 100 Indigenous firefighters in Brazil. 

Right now, the standard is for firefighters to use satellite images to find blazes. But those images have limitations. 

Ronaldo Constantino, director of operations for firefighters in the Kadiwéuterritory, said through an interpreter that the satellite images indicate hot spots but don’t show how big a fire is. 

“Because the satellite will shoot only the heat. So, sometimes, there is heat, but there aren’t any flames. There is no fire.”

Firefighters need to reach the hot spots, or send drones to fly above them, to see if they are full-blown fires. But it can be hard to figure out which road will lead to a fire.

Firefighter Weverton Abicho Xavier,who got trained on the drone earlier in the season, said that the technology makes finding fires faster.  

“Before, it used to take a whole day to find the fire, and now, we take about half a day.”

There are drawbacks to the drones: Batteries can be hard to charge in the field and conditions are a challenge.  

“The wind in this region is quite strong, and also, sometimes, the forest is so dense that it’s hard to put the drone in the air. That’s something that makes it difficult as well.”

The drones are also fragile — at the training, one broke after a rough landing and will have to be repaired in the state capital six hours away.

But fire researcher Alexandre Pereira said that rethinking firefighting — and especially prevention strategies — is exactly what needs to happen right now.  

“Climate change changes everything, so we have to think out of the box and think of new strategies.”

Pereira is a researcher at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul and works for Prevfogo, the federal fire prevention agency. He said that almost all the fires in the Pantanal are started by people.

“The people set fire to renew the pasture, but in these conditions, nowadays, it’s not good to set fire in these conditions.”

The region faces historic drought and recurring heat waves. Pereira said that one major solution to the fires is to convince people to wait for better conditions — less hot and dry — to burn their fields.

Deforestation and degradation of land in the areas surrounding the Pantanal is another big challenge, he said.

Conserving and reforesting land around the headwaters of the rivers that feed into the Pantanal would help restore the hydrological cycle that typically sends seasonal floods into the wetlands. 

Reducing the carbon emissions that create hotter and drier conditions fueling wildfires in the Pantanal would also be part of a larger solution. 

And reducing wildfires in the Pantanal would, in turn, help reduce Brazil’s emissions. Land use change, including deforestation and wildfires, have long been Brazil’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. 

“So, if you stop the wildfires, we get part of the solution [to] climate change,” Pereira said. 

Nacimento said that he agrees that a more systematic approach to preventing and combating wildfires is essential. But anything that can help firefighters sweating it out on the front lines —  including his drones — are worth it. 

“I think it’s a small part but a crucial part of the solution,” he said.