Fire in moist forest is the first hour of the threshold
In Live Science's 17 September 2026 interview, Brazilian ecologist Bernardo Flores says a strengthening El Niño dries the Amazon and can let fire enter moist forest that rarely burns. He says past strong El Niño years grew more severe, and that a possibly record event could accelerate burned area. The source is an interview, not a newly dated journal article.[1]
Flores does not draw the threshold as a one-season flip to savanna. It is the point where the feedbacks that held resilience weaken and a drought-fire loop gains strength; collapse could take decades. That makes this season's lever keeping fire out of moist forest. The interview's line that people will have to react sits there: urgency without a midnight switch.[1]
The 1.5 C trap, 40 percent degradation and the armed lever
Flores says a model trap can sit at 1.5 C of global warming with 22 percent accumulated deforestation across the Amazon: enough lost forest and rain that the system stays in a self-drying loop. In the same answer he adds that decades of degradation were not in that threshold, and that at least 40 percent of the Amazon is estimated degraded. Those figures come from the interview's account of the model, not from a paper abstract in the card.[1]
Physics alone does not carry the fire. Flores says Indigenous and local management has held resilience, while armed groups tied to illegal mining, logging and land grabbing spread ignition into remote forest. The lever is stopping that occupation together with 20-30 years of restoration. The observable signal this El Niño year is burned area in moist forest and whether Indigenous governance still holds in those places.[1]