Brazil experiencing record-breaking wildfires as persistent drought affects the Amazon rainforest

A series of record-breaking wildfires are currently burning in several regions in Brazil, threatening residents and some of the most important ecological systems in the world.

More than 50,000 wildfires are currently active throughout Brazil, authorities and the Igarape Institute, a Brazilian-based think tank that focuses on emerging security and development issues, told ABC News. Some of the regions most heavily affected are the Amazon, Cerrado and the Pantanal.

The fires are so bad that residents in nearby towns are choking on the smoke, The Associated Press reported. Densely populated cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are at risk of fires coming within city limits, officials said.

About 60% of all the fires burning throughout Latin America are currently happening in Brazil, officials said.

A third of the fires are sparked by human-caused actions to clear land for agricultural purposes, according to experts. Deforestation and drought are contributing heavily to the wildfires, Rachael Garrett, a professor of conservation and development at the University of Cambridge, told ABC News.

The Amazon is currently experiencing the worst drought in 40 years, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Tuesday while visiting an Amazon riverside community near the city of Tefe.

Lula has called on the public to identify any suspected arsonists to federal police. In Brazil, criminals starting fires only risk a prison sentence up to four years in jail, but Lula has vowed to change that law.

A record amount of land has already been burned in Brazil so far this year. About 12 million hectares, or nearly 30 million acres, were destroyed in Brazil between January and August, according to MapBiomas, a Brazilian fire activity monitoring site. The states of Roraima and Matto Groso were the most affected.

There have been 180,000 fires this year in Brazil, with more than 7,000 occurring in just the past two days, according to the National Institute for Space Research,Brazil's satellite agency.

This is the most fires in a year since 2010, according to the agency, with more than three months to go in 2024.

Deforestation of the Amazon has led to a reduction in rainfall in Brazil, throwing the ecosystem off balance and causing a loop of drought and devastating wildfires, Garrett said.

Out-of-control wildfires in the Amazon are also affecting nearby countries as well, prompting flight cancellations, evacuations and school closures in Bolivia and Ecuador due to the smoke.

While the wildfire season in the Amazon region traditionally occurred from August to October, it now stretches on for six months, Efrain Tinta Guachalla, a socio-territorial investigator at Fundación Tierra, a Bolivian NGO dedicated to sustainable rural development, told ABC News earlier this week.

Deforestation for the growing amount of farmland, often for soy and cattle, is likely the culprit behind the extended fire season, Guachalla said.

The Amazon rainforest is one of the most important and biodiverse ecosystems in the world. Not only does it contribute heavily to the watershed systems in South America, it houses millions of species of plants, animals and insects and absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, experts say.

Further degradation of the Amazon would be "catastrophic" for the already delicate ecosystems in the region, Garrett said.

ABC News' Victoria Beaule and Trisha Mukherjee contributed to this report.