Amazon forest turns into ‘gates of Hell’ as fires continue to rip through Brazil

As I trudged through the fires raging in the Amazon, the intense heat not only wrenched every last drop of perspiration from me, it also scorched my skin, melted my shoes and burnt my clothes.

After a week in the rainforest — alongside the firefighters desperately trying to save this precious resource from destruction — I feel like I have been led to the gates of Hell.

I’m in Brazil, deep in the heart of the Amazon’s most fire-ravaged area, and the devastation seems endless.

This part of the world’s greatest rainforest looks like a smouldering wasteland.

Many of the fires are believed to have been started by armed crime gangs intent on clearing the forest to illegally sell the land to cattle ranchers.

We drove hundreds of miles through Rondonia state, in northern Brazil, to witness the scale of the disaster, which is nearly as much a calamity for us in Britain as it is for South America.