Satellite data from the Brazilian network MapBiomas show the smallest burned area in the Amazon since the record series began in 1985. Around 3.1 million hectares were affected in 2025. Against 2024 that is a fall of roughly 80 per cent.
The year before had been the opposite. An exceptional drought let fires run out of control, and about 15.6 million hectares burned. A reversal of that size within twelve months is rare. The decline was "out of the ordinary", the geographer Ane Alencar, who coordinated the report, told the news agency AFP.
Fires also receded nationwide. Brazil as a whole recorded about 12.7 million hectares in 2025, after more than 30 million hectares the year before. That is the lowest figure since 2018, SRF reports.
There is no single cause. After two dry years the rain returned and vegetation stayed damp. A delayed rainy season between 2024 and 2025 closed the usual window for burning in some regions, Alencar said. Deforestation fell further at the same time. That has a direct effect, because many fires are lit to turn cleared land into pasture or cropland.
MapBiomas also describes a psychological factor. After the disaster year of 2024, many communities feared a repeat and kept outbreaks small themselves. The government additionally tightened enforcement against environmental crime, including illegal gold mines.
The network does not count individual hotspots. It maps burn scars on Landsat images and analyses them with deep-learning software. Because the method has stayed the same since 1985, a single year can be measured against four decades.
The relief is unevenly spread. The Cerrado, the vast savanna of central Brazil, kept burning at similar rates, according to Alencar. Across the past four decades more than 49 per cent of all burned land lay on private rural properties, with a further eight per cent in settlements.
Whether the low point holds is a question of weather. In March 2026 the US agency NOAA put the probability of an El Niño forming in the summer of 2026 at 62 per cent. For October to December 2026 its Climate Prediction Center gives a one-in-three chance that the event turns out strong. A strong El Niño would extend the dry season and raise the fire risk, Alencar warns.
The water balance recovered in 2025 as well. The area covered by water lay about 2.6 per cent above the long-term average. "Despite this recovery the long-term situation remains worrying, because extreme weather events are becoming more frequent in the region," said the researcher Bruno Ferreira.