{"id":74477,"date":"2025-05-05T11:45:27","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T09:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=74477"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:54:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:54:20","slug":"we-risk-our-lives-facing-amazon-wildfires-what-will-politicians-risk-to-make-the-polluters-behind-them-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/74477\/we-risk-our-lives-facing-amazon-wildfires-what-will-politicians-risk-to-make-the-polluters-behind-them-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"We risk our lives facing Amazon wildfires. What will politicians risk to make the polluters behind them pay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Fire
Overflight images in Porto Velho, in the Amacro region (Amazonas, Acre and Rond\u00f4nia states), in an area of around 8,000 hectares of deforestation – the largest in 2022 – that has been burning for days.
\u00a9 Nilmar Lage \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

There are some things that cannot be expressed adequately in words: the sound of a home reduced to ashes, the sight of families fleeing in a rush, or the scent of a habitat of beautiful forest animals turned into blackened wasteland. That is the horror of witnessing the Amazon being consumed by wildfires.<\/p>\n\n

Yet I cannot imagine ever turning my back on it and letting it burn. I am a volunteer forest firefighter, in the Brigada de Alter do Ch\u00e3o<\/a>, in operation for six years now in the state of Par\u00e1, Borari territory. My experience with climate change is intense, both in suffering its consequences and in fighting its causes. We are on the front lines of combating forest fires in our community and help other communities establish groups like ours to provide the first response for when wildfires occur.<\/p>\n\n

To defend this rainforest \u2013 the soul of our country and a key to our planet\u2019s survival \u2013 we volunteer to fight wildfires that put our lives at risk. We are joining the \u201cpolluters pay pact\u201d to demand governments find the courage to impose significant taxes on the oil and gas corporations that literally fan the flames. <\/p>\n\n

The era of climate crisis is overlapping an era of inflation, budget cuts and chronic underfunding of public services. Although fires are getting worse, we are seeing cuts in pay and in the size of firefighting forces even in rich countries in the EU<\/a>, the UK<\/a>, and in the US. There many firefighters accumulate more than a thousand hours of overtime<\/a> a year (a situation made even worse with the current administration). This puts remaining frontline workers at a higher risk<\/a> of accidents and deaths. <\/p>\n

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A post shared by Greenpeace International \ud83c\udf0d (@greenpeace)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n