Satellite image of an active fire (lower left) and vast burn scars (brown) in Pocone, Mato Grosso, Brazil, in the Pantanal region of South America, on 27th August 2020. A dry wet season saw fires burning from the beginning of 2020. With the onset of the dry season in July the number of fires surged and it is estimated that 24,000 square kilometres of the Pantanal has been affected. The previous annual record, from 2005, was the burning of 4,600 square kilometres. Many of the fires are started intentionally, to clear vegetation or burn rubbish, but escape and spread due to the dry conditions. The straight line down right is the Transpantaneira Highway and the meandering green line at left is the Paraguay River. Image obtained by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite.