Brazilian war planes used in fight against raging Amazon fires

Hercules jets have begun dumping thousands of gallons of water on the burning Amazon forests as world leaders pledge to help.

Brazilian warplanes have been sent to help tackle the raging fires that are devastating huge swathes of the Amazon rainforest.

Hercules jets have begun dumping thousands of gallons of water onto the burning forests in the Amazon state of Rondonia as the world’s attention turns to Brazil.

World leaders taking part in the G7 Summit have said they are preparing to help in the battle against the blazes burning across the Amazon.

Yesterday, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro authorised military operations in seven states after local governments asked for assistance, a spokeswoman for his office said.

A video posted by the Brazilian Defense Ministry shows a military plane bailing water out of two giant jets as it passed through clouds of smoke close to the forest canopy.

It follows the announcement on Friday that Mr Bolsonaro would send 44,000 soldiers to help control the infernos that are scattered across Brazil’s share of the Amazon.

The fires cover an overall region 10 times the size of Texas that is seen as a global barricade against climate change.

Only a few hundred troops had been sent so far.

French President Emmanuel Macron said leaders at the summit in Biarritz, France, were nearing an agreement on how to support Brazil.

He said the agreement would involve both technical and financial support ‘so that we can help them in the most effective way possible’.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country and others will talk with Brazil about reforestation in the Amazon once fires there have been extinguished.

She said: ‘Of course (this is) Brazilian territory, but we have a question here of the rainforests that is really a global question.

‘The lung of our whole Earth is affected, and so we must find common solutions.’

Pope Francis also added his voice to the chorus of concern over the fires in Brazil, which borders his homeland of Argentina, and urged people to pray so that ‘they are controlled as quickly as possible’.

He told a crowd in St Peter’s Square that ‘we’re all worried’ about the Amazon fires. He warned that that the ‘lung of forest is vital for our planet’.

Mr Bolsonaro tweeted on Sunday that he had talked by phone with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israel would send a specialised plane to help in the firefighting operation.

Brazil’s satellite monitoring agency has recorded more than 41,000 fires in the Amazon region so far this year – with more than half of those coming this month alone.

Experts say most of the fires are set by farmers or ranchers clearing existing farmland. But the same monitoring agency has reported a sharp increase in deforestation this year as well.

Brazil’s federal police agency announced yesterday that it would investigate reports that farmers in the state of Para, one of those most affected by the blazes, had called for ‘a day of fire’ to ignite blazes on August 10.

Local news media said the group organised over WhatsApp to show support for Mr Bolsonaro’s efforts to loosen environmental regulations.

Justice minister Sergio Moro, who oversees the police, said on Twitter that Mr Bolsonaro ‘asked for a rigorous investigation’ and said ‘the criminal fires will be severely punished’.

People demonstrated in Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities on Sunday demanding Mr Bolsonaro’s administration do more to protect the Amazon.

One boy in Rio held up a poster saying ‘Bol onaro is burning our future’, while people chanted: ‘Bolsonaro out! Amazon stays!’

In Brazil, the president and his environment minister Ricardo Salles are blamed for not only permitted the devastating fires but encouraging them.

Mr Bolsonaro is a climate denier who dismissed the scientific consensus about climate scenarios as a ‘hoax’.

He campaigned to ‘exploit’ the Amazon to be used for agriculture – meaning deforestation.

That can be achieved by cutting down trees or, more efficiently, by simply burning large areas.

The Brazilian president also has a tense relationship with foreign governments that he accuses of meddling in his country’s management of the Amazon.

He last week floated the idea, without evidence, that non-governmental groups were setting fires to embarrass him.

Mr Macron’s office on Friday complained that the Brazilian leader ‘had lied to him’ about environmental commitments.

Asked if he would speak with Mr Macron, Mr Bolsonaro said: ‘If he calls me, I will answer. I am being extremely well-mannered with him even though he called me “a liar”.’

Meanwhile, Bolivian President Evo Morales said he would welcome aid in fighting his own country’s wildfires, which have scorched about 3,475 square miles (900,000 hectares).

Most of the damage has been in the forests of the Chiquitania region over the past two weeks, but fires also have burned in Bolivia’s Amazon region.

Mr Morales said he had accepted offers of assistance from the leaders of Spain, Chile and Paraguay.