What causes fires in the amazon rainforest?

Question

What causes fires in the amazon rainforest?

Answer 1

man chops down trees & sets fire to them in order to clear the land to grow grass (for a couple of years) to raise beef cattle to sell to McDonalds to feed fat Americans.  The land is poor quality, so after about 2 years the grass does not grow as all nutrients are lost, so they have to slash & burn another space.  As the soil is depleted the rainforest can not return...

Answer 2

I think it is possibly caused by lighting and human activities of deforestation for cutting trees for the as fuel or agriculture purpose. It seldom happened fire in Amazon rain forest. Even if it happened occasionally, the fire extingushed itself in very short period. Amazon is a wet and rainy spot and it is entire different to the dry bushes in California beaches.

The following is clipped from the article published in the internet.

[edit] Use of the term deforestation

It has been argued that the lack of specificity in use of the term deforestation distorts forestry issues.[23] The term deforestation is used to refer to activities that use the forest, for example, fuel wood cutting, commercial logging, as well as activities that cause temporary removal of forest cover such as the slash and burn technique, a component of some shifting cultivation agricultural systems or clearcutting. It is also used to describe forest clearing for annual crops and forest loss from over-grazing. Some definitions of deforestation include activities such as establishment of industrial forest plantations that are considered afforestation by others. It has also been argued that the term deforestation is such an emotional term that is used "so ambiguously that it is virtually meaningless" unless it is specified what is meant.[24] More specific terms terms include forest decline, forest fragmentation and forest degradation, loss of forest cover and land use conversion.

The term also has a traditional legal sense of the conversion of Royal forest land into purlieu or other non-forest land use.

[edit] Levels of causation

The causes of deforestation are complex and often differ in each forest and country. It may be difficult to determine the cause of deforestation in a particular forest. For example, a rise in the price of soybeans may result in soybean farmers displacing cattle ranchers in order to expand their farms. This might cause cattle ranchers to shift to land previously used by slash and burn farmers. The farmers in turn shift further into the forest that has been made accessible by roads built by loggers. In this case it may not be clear who "caused" deforestation. In this case it could be claimed that while the loggers caused forest degradation and that the slash and burn farmers were agents of deforestation, the cause was demand for farm land. The underlaying causes may be poverty or the trade in international commodities.

[edit] Historical causes

Further information: Timeline of environmental events

[edit] Prehistory

Deforestation has been practiced by humans since the beginnings of civilization.  

Deforestation has been practiced by humans since the beginnings of civilization. Fire was the first tool that allowed humans to modify the landscape. The first evidence of deforestation appears in the Mesolithic. It was probably used to drive game into more accessible areas. With the advent of agriculture, fire became the prime tool to clear land for crops. In Europe there is little solid evidence before 7000 BC. Mesolithic foragers used fire to create openings for red deer and wild boar. In Great Britain shade tolerant species such as oak and ash are replaced in the pollen record by hazels, brambles, grasses and nettles. Removal of the forests led to decreased transpiration resulting in the formation of upland peat bogs. Widespread decrease in elm pollen across Europe between 8400-8300 BC and 7200-7000 BC, starting in southern Europe and gradually moving north to Great Britain, may represent land clearing by fire at the onset of Neolithic agriculture.

Answer 3

The world's natural forests are experiencing  land use change due to both proximate (direct) and underlying (indirect) causes. Direct causes include immediate human  land use activities that change forest cover in a local area. Key drivers include agricultural expansion, infrastructure development, wood extraction, climate change, fire and alien invasive species. Underlying causes result from social and institutional processes that may indirectly impact forest cover from a local, national, or international level. Prominent underlying causes include market failure and perverse incentives, corruption, inappropriate state policies and institutional failure, population pressure and poverty. In general, forest related land use changes have complex socio-economic, cultural and political foundations. One cannot assume simple and static cause-effect relationships.

Answer 4

sometimes a dewdrop cause it. when the sunshines, and its rays drop on a spot of rain or dew drop which works as a lense... ntensifying the rays thus burns the spot, and causing the start of a fire.

Answer 5

i think rainforests are increasingly susceptible to forest fires today due to degradation from selective logging, fragmentation, and agricultural activities. Scientists are concerned that much of the Amazon is at risk of burning, and that in the future we could see fires similar to those that so damaged Indonesia in recent el Niño years.

Answer 6

Over there it is mostly slash and burn gone out of control.and glass in trash that acts like a magnifying glass

And lightning bolts from thunder showers

In other places it would be many other reasons as well such as cigarettes our of car windows ,pyromaniacs and sloppy camp fires

Answer 7

I would suspect that lightning would be the biggest cause followed by man burning off large areas for development...or it may be just the other way around.....I know it couldn't be because of the monkeys....they don't have any pockets to carry matches or lighters!

Answer 8

I think its because; say trees have water droplets on there leaves after raining or something, so the sun rays reflects on that droplet and the droplet imitates a magnefy glass and magnefies the rays and it slowly heats up and bingo we have a fire. Or you could go with the old guy and his monkey theory.