Brazilians often send small balloons lighted by candles up into the night sky, even though the practice is prohibited and punishable by fines or even prison
It rained ash in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, 39 kilometres (24 miles) away from Juguery Park, which was set ablaze when an illegal fire balloon fell, setting off a fire that burned across more than half of the state park.
Brazilians often send small balloons lighted by candles up into the night sky, even though the practice is prohibited and punishable by fines or even prison. Sao Paulo state officials list the balloons among the top three causes of forest fires each year.
City officials in Franco da Rocha said the fire balloon that came down in the park set the blaze spread by strong winds and the intense summer heat.
Juguery Park, of about 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres), was created in 1993 and preserved one of the last remnants of the Cerrado biome in the Sao Paulo metropolitan region
Ninety firefighters and more than 100 members of Civil Defense were sent to fight the fire.
Juguery Park, of about 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres), was created in 1993 and preserved one of the last remnants of the Cerrado biome in the Sao Paulo metropolitan region.
According to a report, in 2020, there were 44,013 rainforest wildfire outbreaks between January and August in the Amazonas and Pantanal in Brazil.
NGOs and volunteers have tried to save endangered animals and it is expected that the health systems of the Amazon region, already overloaded by the Covid-19 pandemic, will be even more overloaded due to respiratory diseases due to smoke emitted by the wildfires.