Brazil's Kalunga people at frontline of nation's climate fight

• Brazil grapples with worst fires since 2010 amid severe drought
• Firefighters led by Kalunga community battle flames in Pantanal
• Fires worsening with climate change, deforestation

In the world’s largest tropical wetland, Brazil’s Pantanal, a group of Kalunga firefighters dig a firebreak line between the forest and the flames as they battle a wildfire spreading over the region.

The firefighters are descendants of enslaved Africans that first set up Brazil's "quilombo" settlements three centuries ago.

Brazil has suffered from a historic drought this year as South America increasingly struggles with the impact of climate change. The country had its largest burnt area of land in over a decade in the first nine months of 2024, according to government data, as the drought exacerbated human-started fires.

The Kalunga are recognised for their firefighting techniques, and Brazil's Ministry of Environment has been recruiting them since 2013 to work in the federal fire brigade Prevfogo during the dry season.

"We open this line to enclose the fire … so that it doesn't spread further," said Kalunga squad leader Roberto Francisco Maia, smoke rising from the ash-covered ground.

The firefighters are hired for six months every year and are paid between 1,412 reais ($253.06) and 5,280 reais a month, excluding benefits.

Equipped with leaf blowers, shovels, and machetes, some dig the clean line while others blow leaves and cut branches, using traditional methods that have been successful preserving their native, tropical savannah region, the Cerrado.

This has become an increasingly common sight in the Pantanal, which has lost about 81% of its water surface since 1985, according to data released in June by MapBiomas - a collaboration between universities, non-profit organisations and tech firms.

Kalunga firefighters have been deployed in several regions of Brazil and are beginning to work internationally, having been sent to Bolivia this year and Canada in 2023, said Prevfogo chief of operations Charles Pereira Pinto.

They have ample experience preventing fires in their own quilombo territory in Goiás state and are routinely called to train environmental officers, Indigenous communities and others around the country, researchers and firefighters from different regions have said.

Brazil's Indigenous people and natives from quilombo settlements make up about 70% of the country's 3,662 federal firefighters, according to the Ministry of Environment.

But it can be challenging to work on the firefighting frontline of a country still learning how to deal with drier and more flammable conditions. Firefighters are having to adapt, and the work can be dangerous, Maia said.

Traditional expertise

At a recent meeting in Prevfogo's headquarters in the Corumbá municipality, meteorologist Naiane Araújo Silva projected a map of the Pantanal -- it was covered in red.

"In red you have the areas with humidity below 30%, wind blowing above 30 kilometers per hour, and temperature over 30ºC," she told the Prevfogo officers, adding that these conditions were conducive to the spread of fires.

This type of dangerous combination has become more common in South America, making the Kalunga community's firefighting knowledge particularly valuable, said Ane Alencar, director of science at the IPAM environmental institute.

Pereira Pinto, who is a descendant of the Kalunga community, says their firefighting knowledge runs deep.

They have long used flames in the rainy season, when fire is less likely to spin out of control, to prepare land for agriculture. They have also traditionally burned river springs -- or set "prescribed fires" -- as a preventative measure to avoid future fire hazards, he said.

Pereira Pinto said authorities started to realise that these so-called "prescribed fires", once frowned upon by environmental officers, were essential to keep the Cerrado land protected from the risk of bigger fires in future.

"You couldn't just discard traditional knowledge," he said.

Thainan Bornato, the Prevfogo's deputy coordinator in Corumbá, said the fact that Kalunga firefighters were deployed more frequently across the country reflected their success in their home region.

The Kalunga only have the time to "be sent to other places because they have already made a lot of progress in protecting their own territory," she said.

But firefighters complain that the amount of time that they are deployed by the ministry has become inadequate because the fire season is becoming less predictable.

While they are only hired for six months of the year, the fire season has been lasting longer in recent years -- starting earlier and ending later than expected.

"Fire isn't something that happens only for six months anymore, it happens all the time," said Maia.

Kalunga firefighters say they should be hired for the whole year to allow them to execute more prescribed fires and adapt to the varied areas they are sent to.

Difference in Terrain

As Kalunga firefighters get deployed across the country, another challenge is that they are having to work in new environments, which can be tricky.

Trees in their native Cerrado region are more fire resistant than those in the Amazon and in the Pantanal, for example.

"The difficulty for us here (in the Pantanal) is that we don't know the terrain that well," said Maia.

In some cases, they must cut burning trees down with chainsaws to prevent them from falling across firebreaks and spreading flames to still unburned areas.

Another difference is that abundant dead leaves and branches in the Pantanal and the Amazon form a thick, flammable layer decomposing on the ground, through which blazes can easily spread, often unseen from the surface. This makes it more difficult for firefighters to extinguish flames completely in this environment.

"In our land you are able to put the fire out directly, but here you have to use firebreaks," said Kalunga firefighter Guilherme Pereira Rodrigues, referring to the practice of digging out the organic layer until reaching the mineral ground to prevent flames from spreading under the surface.

"There is no other way", he said.

In the ash-heavy darkness, some carcará birds glide low as they search for prey amid the crackling sound of burning trees.

Firefighters have just spent an hour battling flames in an area of trees, and squad leader Maia climbs on top of the Prevfogo water truck to have a better look and make sure the blazes are out.

"The fire started again!", he shouts as he rushes towards the flames. "Gather everybody!"

($1 = 5.5797 reais)

(Reporting by Andre Cabette Fabio; Editing by Jack Graham and Ana Nicolaci da Costa.)