Population of Santarém (PA) suffers from impacts of fires – 12/14/2023 – Environment

Difficulty breathing, coughing, allergies and even skin lesions are among the main complaints of patients at the UBS (basic health unit) in the Livramento neighborhood, on the outskirts of Santarém, the main urban, financial, commercial and cultural center in western Pará.

According to doctor Oziel Mendes Oliveira, the number of visits, mostly involving elderly people and children, has increased in recent months and remained high until the beginning of December, due to smoke inhalation.

The World Air Quality Index platform, which brings together data on air quality in different parts of the world, recorded on November 2 that Santarém had one of the worst global indices: 301 micrograms of pollutants per cubic meter. After the start of the rains, the number has already dropped (it was 32 mcg on December 5, for example), which, according to doctors, should have an impact on the health of the population in the coming weeks.

Semsa (Municipal Health Department) states that from October 1st to December 1st, UBSs registered 1,335 cases of respiratory syndromes related to smoke inhalation. And since November 4, the 24-hour UPA (emergency care unit) has provided assistance to 19 patients.

Although apparently high, Semsa’s numbers may be underreported, since, in the same UBS where the report interviewed doctor Oziel Mendes Oliveira, there are no cases officially registered as resulting from smoke in the last three months. In UPAs, where there are only 19 cases recorded, the scenario described is also different.

“We noticed a considerable increase in cases in emergency departments with complaints related to the toxic action of smoke in recent months, mainly related to the respiratory system, such as coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing, throat irritation and watery eyes”, he says. Abrãao Gualberto, doctor on duty at UPA 24h.

He says that people with chronic diseases such as asthma are also appearing frequently, as well as cases of bronchitis and chemical pneumonia.

Regarding information conflicts, the secretariat states that the numbers are recorded as classified in the medical records.

Carmén Lithiner, 59, resident of the Caranazal community, which is located between the center of Santarém and the resort town of Alter do Chão, faces despair due to difficulty breathing.

“I am asthmatic and this phenomenon has affected my health even more. I had to double the doses of the medicine I take to regulate the attacks. A few days ago it rained, but the atmosphere is so heavy that the smell of smoke can come from the early hours of the morning “, it says.

The recommendation given by doctors is that daily hydration is reinforced, houses are kept ventilated, and, if there is a persistent cough or difficulty breathing, people seek health facilities, as there are cases in which the use of oxygen is essential.

According to Daniel Govino, a member of the Alter Brigade, since September it has been possible to view, via satellite, smoke coming from various places. “Areas of municipalities neighboring Santarém, such as Mojuí and Belterra, in addition to farms in the south of Pará, formed fire patches around the Tapajós National Forest. The conservation units were where it burned less or not at all”, he describes.

According to the Federal Law on Environmental Crimes No. 9,605/1998, anyone caught promoting fires is subject to imprisonment for one to four years, in addition to a fine ranging from R$5,000 to R$50 million.

According to the Santarém Municipal Environment Secretariat, measures to combat the problem involve environmental education actions and reinforced inspections. According to management, 175 calls related to fires were recorded from the beginning of the year until November 29th.

With a doctorate in atmospheric sciences, professor at Ufopa (Federal University of Western Pará) Lucas Perez works at the Amazon Atmospheric Observatory, located on the university’s experimental farm. He explains that, in November, there were many fires in the North and Northeast of Brazil and that the smoke was transported to the Amazon by the trade winds.

This, added to the fire in the interior of the Amazon, as is the case in Santarém and Manaus, gave rise to a large amount of smoke.

The Amazon Atmospheric Observatory is the first in the region and helps collect data for Inpe (National Institute for Space Research). “What we really need are more people to analyze this data. We are committed to keeping all the equipment working, but extracting the science from them requires much more time and scholarship students to form an adequate team”, says the professor.

The trade winds, mentioned by Perez, are consistent and predominant winds that blow from the tropics toward the Equator and from the tropics toward the poles, transporting heat and moisture around the globe. They have their regime modified by the El Niño climate phenomenon.

In 2015, the year in which El Niño was recorded as most intense, the local temperature was 2°C above average. The drought, which normally lasts six months, lasted for eight months and the forest experienced a mega fire in the Baixo Tapajós region, where Santarém is located.

“The megafire is defined as [o que ocorre em] a forest area of ​​more than 10 thousand hectares. In 2015, 1 million hectares of forest burned, 2 and a half billion trees died at the time, generating the emission of around 495 tons of CO_two for the atmosphere”, says Erika Berenguer, researcher at the University of Oxford and the Sustainable Amazon Network.

This year, Berenguer’s health was also affected by the fires, with pneumonia caused by smoke poisoning.

According to her, the comparison of current temperature data and those recorded in the 2015 El Niño can only be done after the end of the drought, which, even with the start of the rains, has not come to an end, as it is still raining less than expected. for this period of the year.

The scientist, who has dedicated herself to the Amazon for 15 years, highlights the three main uses of fire in the Amazon: deforestation, management and pasture fire and family farming fire. “What these three types of fire have in common is that in years of extreme drought, such as 2015 and 2023, they can spread to the forest area, generating fires.”

On her account on X (formerly Twitter), the scientist complained about the lack of visibility of the issue at COP28, the UN climate conference that ended this Wednesday (13) in Dubai.

For her, it is possible to prevent problems caused by fires in the Amazon forest with actions such as “giving protagonism to fires, disseminating official data, which can help to outline public policies”.

Berenguer also suggests the creation of an emergency climate fund for the Amazon, a “forest closed grant”, as he calls it, “since several indigenous populations, quilombolas, riverside populations and agrarian reform settlers depend on fire for their food security, and prohibiting all and any use of fire is socially unfair.”

_{This report is part of the Tapajós Journalism Microgrants Program, a partnership between the Amazônia Communication Laboratory, the Saúde e Alegria Project and Folha to stimulate the journalistic production of young professionals from the Amazon.}