Firefighters in Brazil battle to control wildfires spreading through the wetlands of the Amazon rainforest.

The Brazilian Federal Police has launched an investigation to investigate whether the fires were started with the intention of creating pastures for livestock.

In a statement, the Federal Police reported that "Operation Matáá" aims to "clarify criminal responsibility in the fires in the southern Pantanal region."

According to Brazil's National Institute for Space, there were 20,670 square kilometres of burned area in the Amazon in August.

This footage was filmed on September 14 in Manacapuru, northern Brazil.

SHOTLIST:

1. Various of fires in the Brazilian Amazon wetland
2. Various of the work of firefighters in the wetland of the Brazilian Amazon

STORYLINE:


The Brazilian Federal Police launched an operation to investigate whether the fires that have affected the Pantanal, in the Brazilian's Amazon, since mid-August were started with the intention of creating pastures for livestock.

In a statement, the Federal Police reported that "Operation Matáá" aims to "clarify criminal responsibility in the fires in the southern Pantanal region", which belongs to the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (southwestern part of the country).

Through analysis of images captured by satellites and flying over the region, the Federal Police managed to identify the start of the fire and the daily evolution of the outbreaks.

In this first phase of the operation, 31 agents of the Federal Police participate, seeking to enforce ten mandates to search and seize documents in the cities of Corumbá and Campo Grande.

Those investigated could be accused of crimes of damage to permanent preservation forest and contamination, whose combined sentences could exceed 15 years in prison.

For its part, the Brazilian government sent a ministerial mission this Sunday to evaluate and define the strategy to combat the voracious fires that hit the Pantanal, the largest wetland in the world and that Brazil shares with Paraguay and Bolivia.

The Secretary of Protection and Civil Defense, Alexandre Lucas Alves, traveled in the company of officials and technicians to the municipality of Pocoré, in the state of Mato Grosso (central-west), and the epicenter of the fires.

"Through the National Civil Defense we are monitoring the problem and from September 2 we have already begun to release resources," declared on social networks the Minister of Regional Development, Rogerio Marinho, who pointed out that the mission "will provide technical and financial support for face disaster ".