Brazil 'at war with fire' as blazes surge from Amazon to country's rural south-east

Brazil's environment minister yesterday declared her country "at war" with fire after a historic surge in blazes - from the depths of the Amazon to the rural south-eastcloaked the cities of Brasília and São Paulo with smoke, grounded flights and forced schools to close.

- Tom Phillips

Speaking after an emergency meeting with the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Marina Silva called the sudden rise in wildfires in São Paulo state's countryside "unusual" and said federal police were investigating the causes.

Three people have been arrested.

Some fear Brazil could be witnessing a repeat of 2019's "Day of Fire": a wave of deliberate, politically charged conflagrations that ripped through the Amazon rainforest in the first year of Jair Bolsonaro's environmentally calamitous presidency.

Referring to the situation in São Paulo, Silva, a veteran environmentalist, told reporters: "In virtually two days, various municipalities are burning at the same time. This isn't part of our experience curve in all these years we're been working with fire.