translated from Spanish: Brazilian Armed Forces begin work to fight fires in the Amazon and new spotlights are recorded

Brazil’s Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva announced on Saturday that the Armed Forces have already begun work to combat fires and environmental crimes in the Amazon, a region that has a 44,000 military personnel distributed in its vast territory.
According to the Minister, four of the nine states that make up the Brazilian Amazon have already officially requested the dispatch of Armed Forces teams to assist regional entities in the battle of the flames that devour part of the jungle days ago.
Azevedo e Silva stressed that, at first, he will use the 44,000 men who act in the area, so it will not be necessary to move troops from other areas of the country. “It will all depend on the mission and the premises. But we can quickly make a strategic and effective concentration,” he said at a press conference in Brasilia.
The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Brazilian Armed Forces, Lieutenant Brigadier Raúl Botelho, detailed that two aircraft, with capacity for 12,000 liters of water each, are already being used in specific actions in the state of Rondonia.
Despite the start of operations, the Ministry of Defence is still awaiting the release of 28 million reais (about $7 million) destined for emergencies, but which are blocked by the federal government. According to Azevedo e Silva, the unlocking of those resources has already been authorized and is “agreed,” although he admitted that he will only believe it when he “opens the safe and sees” the money. The latter sum is complemented by about 1 billion reais (about $250 million), which is part of the Amazon Fund’s resources for the conservation and control of the world’s largest tropical forest.
Hundreds of new incendiary hotspots are recorded
Amid the global sleaon that led Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro to mobilize Army troops to put out the fire consuming the Amazon, a hundred new incendiary hotspots have been recorded, according to updated official data up to Saturday (24.08.2019).
While the devastation of the Amazon rainforest is part of the issues addressed at the G7 meeting, the official figures of the current situation are not encouraging at all. The report shows that a total of 1663 fires have been declared between Thursday and Friday, according to the National Institute of Space Research (INPE).
The reaction and economic warnings sent to Bolsonaro from Europe have led to the addition of the Armed Forces to the fight against fire, the president of Brazil broadcasts a national chain speech, warning that his government will have “zero tolerance” with the environmental crimes, but also noted that “there are wildfires around the world, and this cannot be used as a pretext for possible international sanctions.”

Original source in Spanish