BRASILIA, Brazil — Wildfires in Brazil have swept through an area the size of Switzerland, a level of destruction that will take decades to recover, if it ever does, according to a new satellite assessment.

The level of destruction is raising suspicions among Brazilian officials and experts that criminals are using climate change to their advantage.

The breadth of forest that has been lost or degraded was revealed as smoke that has blanketed the country cleared, thanks to rains that may be ending the worst drought Brazil has ever recorded.

“The data is exceptionally alarming, it’s a very abrupt surge,” Ane Alencar, science director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, a Brazilian nonprofit, told The Associated Press.

The area that burned between January and mid-October 2024 represents an 846% increase over the same period in 2023. That’s five times larger than the forest fires of 2019 when, under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, rampant destruction of the Amazon made headlines worldwide.

The estimate comes from the National Institute for Space Research, which tracks Brazil’s official deforestation rate.

This surge in fire comes one year before the Amazon city of Belem will host the annual U.N. climate conference, COP30. And the criminal element has been a focus.

Deforestation in the Amazon usually begins with chainsaws. Wet, fallen trees are left lying on the ground until they’re dry enough to set afire. They’re not even used for lumber.

Now with the forest drying out from drought, lawbreakers seeking to create more pasture may be skipping the expensive, labor-intensive step of felling trees. A lighter and a few gallons of gasoline suffice to start a blaze.

“The drought played a major role in fueling the spread, but fire has also been weaponized,” Alencar said.

“The forest’s resilience to a severe drought is proving to be very low,” André Lima, secretary of deforestation control at the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, said in Brasilia. “You don’t need 1 million people setting fires to cause the disaster. One thousand can do it. We recorded 500 large blazes, that all began with a match.”

Fueled by human-induced climate change and the ocean-warming phenomenon of El Niño, the world’s largest basin is reeling from two years of severe drought. Many rivers fell to record lows in 2023, then broke those records in 2024.

Then came fire. In September, wildfires surged through the region, doubling the acreage that had burned so far this year. With more than two months remaining in 2024, it’s already the largest area burned since Brazil began using its current methodology a decade ago.

The unprecedented rise in fire has prompted Brazil’s government to consider mandating that all burned areas be reforested — a deterrent for landgrabbers who hope to convert public forest into their own private pasture.