Smoke from fires in the Amazon rainforest, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland, and Sao Paulo state has blanketed Brazil's modernist capital, Brasilia, causing a smog crisis in the central part of the country. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited Brazil's fire monitoring center to address the situation, attributing the fires to human activity rather than natural causes.
Fire alerts in Sao Paulo state have surged this month, with nearly 3,500 fires reported, the highest monthly total since data collection began in 1998. A significant number of fires on a single day raised suspicions of a coordinated attack. Fortunately, a cold front brought relief with declining temperatures and rain, extinguishing all fires in the region.
