INTRODUCTION – In this paper we assess the effects of fire-related air pollution on population health in the Brazilian Amazon, which is home of 23 million inhabitants and spans over a large and heterogeneous area in terms of population characteristics and patterns of land-use and deforestation. The economic activity is mostly driven by agriculture, the region is sparsely inhabited and there are relatively few and scattered urban settlements. In that sense, ambient air pollution is mainly related to fires and biomass burning (Reddington et al., 2015). While fire activity tends to increase with droughts in specific years, it is often related to anthropogenic degradation and agricultural practices. Most deforested plots in the Brazilian Amazon are burned in preparation for cattle ranching, crop and mining activities (Motta, 2002). Approximately 42% of the total Brazilian greenhouse gas emissions have originated from land cover change in the region, which has recently witnessed an outbreak of deforestation-related fires and a surge in biomass smoke (Silvério et al., 2019; Brasil, 2018).
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