This archive report was first published on 25 August 2019.
Published on August 25, 2019, a day when Brazil's army was deployed to combat Amazon fires, which had been raging for weeks.
Heavy smoke covered the city of Porto Velho in the northwestern state of Rondonia, where the defense ministry said planes had started dumping thousands of litres of water to douse the fires.
Experts attributed the problem to increased land clearing during the months-long dry season to make way for crops or grazing, which had aggravated the issue this year.
"It gets worse every year -- this year, the smoke has been really serious," said Deliana Amorim, 46, a resident of Porto Velho, where half a million people live.
At least seven states, including Rondonia, had requested the army's help in the Amazon, where more than 43,000 troops were based and available to combat fires, officials said.
The fires had triggered a global outcry and were a major topic of concern at the G7 meeting in Biarritz in southern France.
World leaders at the summit had agreed to help the countries affected by the fires "as fast as possible," French President Emmanuel Macron said.
Macron's remarks came amid an escalating war of words with his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro, who he had accused of lying over Brazil's stance on climate change.
Bolsonaro had denounced what he called Macron's "colonialist mentality."
The fires threatened to torpedo a huge trade agreement between the European Union and South American countries, including Brazil, that took 20 years to negotiate.
Pope Francis also voiced concern for the rainforest, describing it as a "vital" lung for the planet.
The latest official figures showed 79,513 forest fires had been recorded in Brazil this year, the highest number of any year since 2013.
More than half of the fires were in the massive Amazon basin, where more than 20 million people lived.
Some 1,130 new fires were ignited between Friday and Saturday, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
