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Raging Fires and Dark Skies Put Brazil’s Bolsonaro in Spotlight

  • Brazil’s President Bolsonaro offered no evidence for claim
  • Freakish weather in Sao Paulo alarms public over deforestation
Sao Paulo shrouded in darkness on Monday, Aug. 19.

Sao Paulo shrouded in darkness on Monday, Aug. 19.

Photographer: Andre Lucas/picture alliance via Getty Images
Updated on

Brazil’s Amazon is burning at a record rate, according to data from the National Institute of Space Research that intensified domestic and international scrutiny of President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policies.

INPE, as the institute is known, recorded an 84% increase in fires in Brazil between 2018 and 2019, most in the Amazon rainforest. It was the highest level in seven years of record keeping. Bolsonaro said Wednesday without offering evidence that NGOs could be setting the blazes to discredit him.