Brazil suffocates from the smoke of the fires.An area the size of Switzerland has already burned in the Amazon

The record drought in Brazil has made the thousands of fires in the Amazon, in the Cerrado savannah and in the Pantanal even more devastating.

• In mid-September there are over 50 thousand active fires in Brazil.
• The areas most affected are the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal.
• The fires, often of malicious origin, spread more quickly due to the drought.

In the voice message he sent to Associated Press, Fátima Silva, a sixty-year-old farmer who lives in the Brazilian city of Labrea, appears visibly shaken.“I'm not well.I'm short of breath, I have a sore throat, I need eye drops for my eyes.I can't go out into the street, I can't go anywhere because everything is white with smoke."Even his grandchildren, he adds, cough so much that they struggle to sleep.The smoke they breathe is that of the fires who in this month of September, by the thousands, flagellate the Amazon, The Pantanal and the Cerrado, in Brazil.Even reaching the territory of metropolises such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Jaineiro.

50 thousand fires simultaneously in the Amazon, Pantanal and Cerrado

The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) takes a census further 184 thousand fires in the territory of Brazil starting from the beginning of the year, of which almost 20 thousand in the state of Amazonas, around 40 thousand in Mato Grosso and over 31 thousand in Para.Between January and August the total is 12 million hectares in flames, about as much as Ireland and Slovakia combined.

Looking at INPE's historical archives, to trace a year with a higher number of fires we need to go back to 2010, when there were 194 thousand:but it is plausible that even that figure will be exceeded, given that there are more than three months left until the end of 2024.In Amazon over 53 thousand fires were reported between January 1st and August 27th, 83 percent more than in the same period last year, spread over an area the size of Switzerland.All 62 municipalities in the state of Amazonas have declared it state of emergency.

According to experts interviewed by AbcNews, the active fires in mid-September are around 50 thousand and they involve above all the Amazon forest, The Pantanal (largest wetland in the world) and the Cerrado savannah.Three different ecosystems, all very precious in terms of biodiversity and carbon dioxide storage.

The causes of the fires in Brazil

“It seems to me that the situation is getting worse every year,” he commented The president of Brazil Lula on September 10, visiting the state of Amazonas.The origin of many of the fires plaguing Brazil is malicious, which is why Lula has promised to tighten the penalties.Once started, the fire spreads much more quickly than usual due to the drought, the worst of the last four decades in the Amazon and of the last seven decades in the Pantanal.An extraordinary situation that could be explained partly by climate change, partly by the meteorological phenomenon known as El Niño, which concluded just last spring.

While firefighters try to put out the flames, the smoke it extends over almost 60 percent of the country's immense territory, causing air quality to plummet in large cities.Even in some areas of Bolivia and Ecuador it was necessary to keep schools closed and cancel flights for safety reasons.