The station was named after Navy Commander Luís Antônio de Carvalho Ferraz, a hydrographer and oceanographer who visited Antarctica twice on board of British vessels. He was instrumental in persuading his country's government to develop an Antarctic program, and died suddenly in 1982 while representing Brazil at an oceanographic conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The station was built on the same site of the old British "Base G", and the weathered wooden structures of the old base made a sharp contrast with the bright green and orange metal structures of the Brazilian station, which was first set up on 6 February 1984. Above the site of the base there is a small cemetery with five crosses: three of them are the graves of British Antarctic Survey personnel; the fourth commemorates a BAS base leader lost at sea, and the fifth cross is the grave of a Brazilian radio operator sergeant who died of a heart attack in 1990.
2012 fire
On 25 February 2012, an explosion in the machine room that housed the station's generators ignited a fire that, according to the Brazilian navy, destroyed approximately 70% of the complex. Two soldiers, originally reported as missing by the Brazilian navy, were found dead in the debris of the station after the fire, while a third one sustained non-life-threatening injuries. Material damage to the base was calculated at US$12.4 million. At the time of the incident, the Brazilian government estimated it would take two years to rebuild the research station. In August 2012, the station was fully dismantled, with approximately 800 tonnes of debris being shipped back to Brazil. The Brazilian government released U$20 million for the construction of of emergency modules to temporarily house researchers until a permanent station had been built. The construction of the temporary station was completed in May 2013. On 15 April 2013, the Brazilian Navy announced it had chosen the winning design for the new Comandante Ferraz base. The winning proposal went to the Curitiba-based Estúdio 41 architecture firm. The new station will extend and will accommodate 64 people. The cost of the project was approximately US$100 million. Approximately 200 Chinese workers from CEIEC were at the construction site. The new and modern station opened in January 2020.
New base
In January 2020, the new station was successfully completed. The opening ceremony, supposed to happen on 14 January, was postponed to the next day due to bad weather conditions hampering the transport of dignatories from Punta Arenas, Chile, to Antarctica. On 15 January, the opening ceremony was held in the presence of the Vice President of BrazilHamilton Mourão among other guests. “Brazil is back in the Antarctic with great force,” said the Science and Technology Minister Marcos Pontes, Brazil’s only astronaut. Pontes said the new 4,500-square-metre facility was bigger and safer, with 17 laboratories, a heliport, and other advances. Scientists will use the base to study microbiology, glaciers, and climate, among other areas.
Climate
With all 12 months having an average temperature below 10 °C, Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station features a tundra climate. The average temperature at the station is of about -1.8 °C, however in the region of the Thiel Mountains, where the new station Criosfera 1 was built, the temperature may drop to -35 °C.
