Fire in Parque do Cocó, in Fortaleza, has been going on for more than 48 hours – 01/19/2024 – Environment

Firefighters try to contain a large fire that hits the Cocó State Park, in Fortaleza (CE), this Friday (19). The fire started on Wednesday night (17) and was brought under control, but returned on Thursday (18) in the morning.

The flames spread to an area between the Cidade 2000 neighborhood and Avenida Sebastião de Abreu in the capital of Ceará. Ceará Civil Defense stated that there are no residences nearby and that there were no victims.

Military personnel from the Ceará Fire Department, Civil Defense, and the Environmental Police Battalion operate at the site. There is still no information about the causes of the fire.

The Cocó State Park is the largest natural park in an urban area in the North and Northeast regions, and the fourth in Latin America, being the largest green fragment in the capital of Ceará, with extensive mangroves and ancient dunes in the surroundings.

Firefighters were called to a fire in the park late Wednesday afternoon. The fire was contained around 9:30 p.m. However, around 8am on Thursday, the corporation was called again after a new outbreak emerged in the region.

According to the State Secretariat for Environment and Climate Change, the affected region is surrounded by vegetation and has difficult access for vehicles, which makes the work of teams difficult. Additionally, the dry grass and strong wind, common at this time of year, have helped the fire spread.

“It’s very slow work, because the wind is very strong, which increasingly causes vegetation to catch fire, but we are working uninterruptedly,” said Colonel Cláudio Barreto, general commander of the Fire Department, in a video released by the Secretariat. of Public Security and Social Defense of the state.

The smoke spread to several neighborhoods in the capital and more distant regions such as Granja Lisboa, around 20 km away from the park. On social media, residents reported that they felt a strong smell and had difficulty breathing.

Colonel Wagner Maia, assistant commander of the Fire Department, said that it is not yet possible to determine the size of the fire nor the impact on the biodiversity of the place.

“A lot of smoke does not allow identifying where the fire starts and ends, it is a type of physical contact fire, it is the man working with pickets and suppressing it”, said Maia, in a press release.

Cocó State Park technician Viviane Bezerra said that the affected area has not had a fire since 2020 and that for the first time a fire occurred in January.

“It normally happens in the second half of the year, due to the dryness, heat and winds, typical of the season, contributing to lowering the water level in the area and drying out the grass, which becomes fuel for fire, a natural process”, he stated.

In August 2020, this same area was hit by a large fire event. The following year, another large fire hit an area close to Avenida Murilo Borges.

Governor Elmano de Freitas (PT) said, on social media, that he determined rigor in the investigation into the causes of the fire.

In 2023, more than 17.3 million hectares were burned in Brazil. The area is larger than the state of Ceará, according to a survey by the MapBiomas Fire Monitor platform released this Thursday (18).

The peak of fires occurred in the months of September and October, with 4 million hectares affected by fire each month.

In December, data shows that the Amazon was the biome most affected by fire, with 1.3 million hectares burned — an increase of 463% compared to the same period of the previous year.