Amazon fires from space, August 2019. The 2019 Brazil wildfires consist of tens of thousands of wildfires that have occurred in the Amazon rainforest during the tropical dry season. This number is higher than usual, thought to be due to government policies allowing increased use of slash-and-burn clearing of forested areas for agricultural purposes. This has implications for global climate change. Some Brazilian states have declared states of emergency in response to the fires. Photographed on 24 August 2019 from the International Space Station (ISS) by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano during the current Expedition 60 to the ISS.