Brazilian prosecutors investigating officials' failure to act on Amazon fire threat

Federal prosecutors in the Amazon state of Pará are launching an investigation into why Ibama, Brazil's environmental agency, ignored warnings that farmers, businessmen, and land-grabbers planned on setting fires around the town of Novo Progresso.

Prosecutors say that on Aug. 5, a farmer told a local newspaper that on Aug. 10, they planned on setting fires to "show the president that we want to work," saying that they could only clear the land by cutting down trees and burning everything down. Ibama finally responded two days after the fires were set, prosecutors said, explaining that police had to leave the area because it was dangerous. Environmental officials in Pará also told The Guardian they knew about the plan to set fires ahead of time, but when they asked their bosses in Brasília for reinforcements, they were ignored.

"It was a considerable failure," prosecutor Paulo Moreira Oliveira told The Guardian. "There should have been immediate action to confront the risk of these fires." This month, there have been more than 26,000 fires reported in the Amazon, which produces about 20 percent of the world's oxygen. Prosecutors are also investigating the rise in deforestation on Pará's public land, and want to determine if authorities are responsible.

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro campaigned on a promise he would open the Amazon up to businesses and development, and cattle ranchers and loggers are his "electoral base," an environmental official told The Guardian. "The last thing they want to know about is protecting the Amazon."