Worst wildfires in more than 20 years: 'It's killing everything'

Wildfires in South America in recent months have been the worst in more than 20 years. While the fires rage, the Amazon region is also experiencing the most severe drought in many years.

Although it is common for forest fires to occur in the region from July to September, this year's fires are described as abnormal.

– Today it kills plants, and soon it will kill us, because we inhale a lot of smoke. It's a very intense fire that kills everything in its path, says Raimundinha Rodrigues da Souza, who runs the volunteer fire department for the Caito indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon.

She's worried that if the fires continue like this, they'll only end with one thing.

“If these fires continue, we indigenous people will die,” she says.

Emissions above normal

The fires have also had a serious impact on air quality across the region, and the European Union's climate service Copernicus has been monitoring emissions from forest fires in South America in recent months, finding them consistently higher than normal.

Adhemar, Da Souza's father, says the constant smoke causes him breathing problems.

– I can't sleep because of lack of air. “It makes me wake up, and I feel like I'm drowning,” he says.

More than 62,000 square kilometers have already burned this year, an area larger than countries like Sri Lanka or Costa Rica.

Last spring, a new report from the World Resources Institute showed that deforestation is declining sharply in Brazil and Colombia.

According to scientists, very few fires in the Amazon occur naturally, but most fires are set illegally by people such as loggers and miners who want to exploit the land.

– Burning has been banned for a few weeks, but it doesn't matter. Christiana Ochoa de Nascimento, who lives in the small village of Laranjeiras, said people were still making fires, and some days it was difficult to breathe because of the smoke. echo.