A quarter of Brazilian land has been on fire at least once over the past four decades, a report published on Tuesday shows.
Between 1985 and 2023, fires ravaged across a total of 199.1 million hectares at least once, corresponding to 23% of the South American country's territory, according to findings by the MapBiomas initiative.
For the report, the network comprising universities, non-governmental organizations and tech companies, analysed satellite images and other data.
The vast tropical savannah in south-eastern Brazil, known as Cerrado, and the Amazon region stretching across the country's north, have borne the brunt of the fires, accounting for 86% of burnt area.
The Cerrado is considered Brazil's water reservoir and is home to around 5% of all animal and plant species worldwide.
The Amazon rainforest is vital for capturing carbon dioxide and plays an important role in the fight against climate change.
The vast majority of Brazil's fires are "caused or triggered by human activity," Ane Alencar, head of the scientific department of the Amazonian environmental research institute IPAM, told news agency Agência Brasil.
More than two thirds of the area affected is covered by natural vegetation, with the rest mostly being agricultural land, Alencar said.
The Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland which extends from western Brazil to neighbouring Bolivia and Paraguay, was the area hit the hardest proportionally, with 59% of its territory in flames between 1985 and 2023.
As of mid-June, Brazilian space institute Inpe registered 1,269 fires in the wetland, compared to 77 a month earlier.
The number of fires seen so far in June is the highest monthly average since records began 26 years ago.
Farmers in the region intentionally set forested areas on fire to create new grazing land, but if the flames get out of control they can cause huge wildfires.