Incêndios florestais na área da 6a Região da Polícia Militar de Minas Gerais: subsídio para o planejamento e fiscalização ambiental

Abstract

In recent years, Brazil and the world have faced numerous forest fires, with a recent alarming increase in these events causing significant damage and destruction. In this context, several studies address fire ecology, particularly in the Amazon and Cerrado domains, primarily using satellite imagery. This study aimed to determine the ignition sources, distribution, and recurrence of forest fires in the municipalities under the jurisdiction of the 6th Military Police Region of Minas Gerais, headquartered in Lavras. This area covers 44 municipalities in the mesoregions of the South, Central-West, and Campo das Vertentes, encompassing a total of 17,430.851 km2 in the ecotone between the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest in the southern part of the state of Minas Gerais.The study utilized secondary data from the Integrated Public Security System of the State Government of Minas Gerais, which stores Social Defense Event Records related to forest fire incidents reported in the study area by the Military Police of Minas Gerais. The research considered a time series from 2011 to 2022 and analyzed 500 fire incident reports, which were georeferenced. From these records, data such as ignition sources, dates of occurrence, and locations within municipalities and phyto physiognomies were extracted, among other information. These data were compared with satellite fire surveys for the same study period. The results revealed that a significant proportion of forest fires occur along highway edges and have undefined causes. The incidents were more prevalent in August, September, and October. It was observed that years with longer droughts and higher temperatures corresponded to a higher number of forest fires in the study area, notably in 2011, 2014, and 2017.This study has the potential to assist the Military Police of Minas Gerais in guiding environmental policing efforts toward areas with higher fire incidence and recurrence, as well as in developing new event reporting formats. The lack of criminal investigation was identified as a critical issue contributing to the high number of incidents with undefined causes, which complicates the identification and prosecution of offenders. Additionally, the findings highlight the need for environmental education targeting the population to address theseconditions and the importance of preventive measures with rural producers, such as vegetation management and, most critically, the construction of firebreaks along roads and highways