South America is being ravaged by fire from Brazil's Amazon rainforest through the world's largest wetlands to dry forests in Bolivia, breaking a previous record for the number of blazes seen in a year up to September 11.

Satellite data analyzed by Brazil's space research agency Inpe has registered 346,112 fire hotspots so far this year in all 13 countries of South America, topping the earlier 2007 record of 345,322 hotspots in a data series that goes back to 1998.

Brazil and Bolivia have dispatched thousands of firefighters to attempt to control the blazes, but remain mostly at the mercy of extreme weather fueling the fires.

Scientists say that while most fires are set by humans, the recent hot and dry conditions being driven by climate change are helping the fires spread more quickly. South America has been hit by a series of heatwaves since last year.

Inhaling wildfire smoke contributes to an average 12,000 early deaths a year in South America, according to a 2023 study in the academic journal Environmental Research: Health. September is typically the peak month for fires in South America. It's unclear whether the continent will continue to have high numbers of fires this year.