AI Cameras Expand Pantanal Fire Watch by 25% to Nearly 2 Million Hectares

Teams protecting Brazil’s Pantanal wetland are relying more on artificial intelligence to catch wildfires early, g1 and TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional reported on October 31. A new camera installed in the Serra do Amolar, in Mato Grosso do Sul, and an upgraded tower in the Mato Grosso part of the biome have expanded the area under AI monitoring by 25%, from 1.5 million hectares to almost 2 million.

The cameras sit on high points and need wide, sharp views and a strong zoom, because the aim is to spot smoke up to 30 kilometres away, said Igor Souza, a technology analyst at the Instituto Homem Pantaneiro (IHP). Some sites can only be reached by boat. In Mato Grosso, a new tower was put up on a stabilising base anchored by six cables so that it does not sway in the wind. The images feed a monitoring centre run by the institute in Corumbá.

The system, called Pantera, analyses the images with AI and can detect a fire from the first signs of smoke within three minutes, according to IHP president Ângelo Rabelo. The technology has been used in the biome for four years. Coverage now includes remote areas around the Amolar, which holds several protected areas, a national park and a UNESCO natural world heritage site.

What it means in practice

AI Cameras Expand Pantanal Fire Watch by 25% to Nearly 2 Million Hectares — contextual photo

Speed matters because fires have grown this year. From January to September 2026, fire reached 145,000 hectares of the Pantanal, 129% more than in the same period of 2025, Jornal Nacional said. Spotting a blaze in its first minutes gives brigades a chance to reach it before wind and dry vegetation spread it across areas where access is slow. The project sits alongside other environmental uses of AI in Brazil, such as the R$147.6 million from the Amazon Fund for INPE’s AI deforestation alerts and USP’s TITAN-LSTM tool, which tracks storms 30 minutes ahead on a laptop.

Cameras do not replace firefighters on the ground, and detection depends on visibility and on where towers stand, so large parts of the biome remain outside their range. The report did not say how many alerts the system has raised this season or how quickly crews reached them.

What to watch next is whether more towers are added before the next dry season, whether faster detection translates into smaller burned areas, and whether fire services in Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul plug the alerts into their own dispatch systems.