MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Smoke from wildfires in Brazil’s Amazon region left people in the region coughing, sore throats and red eyes on Wednesday.
Large parts of the country have been shrouded in smoke in recent days as fires rage in the Amazon, the Cerrado savannah, the Pantanal wetlands and the state of Sao Paulo.
Residents are feeling the pain, including Fátima Silva, a 60-year-old farmer in the Amazon town of Labrea.
“I don’t feel good. I feel short of breath, my throat hurts, my eyes need eye drops, I can’t go out on the street, I can’t go anywhere because everything is white with smoke,” Silva told The Associated Press in a voice message, adding that her grandchildren are coughing so badly they can barely sleep.
“My grandchildren, my children, everyone is getting sick. Today it has become even worse. No one can bear it,” she said.
Traditionally, fires are used for deforestation and for the management of pastures. Man-made fires are largely responsible for the start of forest fires.
According to the National Institute for Space Research, a federal agency, there were 53,620 fires in the Amazon between January 1 and August 27, an 83% increase over the same period last year.
On Wednesday, many areas in the Amazon were classified as having “very bad” or “terrible” air pollution, according to the environmental monitoring system of the State University of Amazonas.
In the event of forest fires and the smoke they produce, the Amazonas State Civil Protection Authority advises drinking plenty of fluids and staying indoors.
But street vendors, garbage collectors, traffic wardens and other workers have to be out and about. That means they can’t avoid the smoke. Worse, because they have to work harder to breathe in those conditions, they breathe more of the dangerous particles into their lungs, said Jesem Orellana, a resident of Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon, and an epidemiologist and researcher at the state-run Fiocruz Institute.
Manaus residents expect “the smoke of death” in mid-September and October, when fires and deforestation are at their peak, but this year the smoke became a problem much earlier, he added.
“That means we’re going to be exposed to this toxic smoke for even longer, which has direct consequences for the health of the population,” Orellana told the AP by telephone. And the impact of the smoke goes beyond physical health, he said, causing anxiety that can affect sleep quality.
Maria Soledade Barros Silva, who lives in the Ponta Negra neighborhood of Manaus, said the nearby river beach where people normally ride bicycles, rollerblades, rollerblades and jet skis is covered in thick smog. Navigation on waterways that residents rely on has also become more complicated.
“It’s not normal. I’ve lived here for 40 years. We didn’t have this before,” Barros said.
Silva, who lives further along the Purus River in Labrea, also said she had never seen anything like it before.
“I think this is the worst place in the world. We are asking for help because we can’t live like this anymore,” she said.
