People in Brazil’s Amazon are choking on smoke and feeling the heat from rainforest wildfires

Associated Press

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Smoke from wildfires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is causing people in the region to cough, burning their throats and reddening their eyes. Swaths of the country have been draped in smoke in recent days, resulting from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo. Residents are feeling the sting, including Fátima Silva, a 60-year-old farmer in the Amazonian town of Labrea. She says: “I am not well. I am feeling 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.”