August through October of each year, the Amazon rainforest struggles through fire season, but with global warming, drought, and deforestation, fire season becomes more devastating each year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week that this past July was the hottest July on record which sparked the unusually early and wide-sweeping fires. Interestingly, the next five hottest Julys were all in the past five years, demonstrating global warming caused these fires to grow each year. This year though, the Amazon rainforest has been facing the worst series of fires to date. Nearly 73,000 wildfires have decimated the Amazon rainforest so far in 2019, a record amount for an ecosystem that produces 20% of Earth's oxygen.

These months are known as fire season because the seasonal dry weather creates the favorable conditions for the use and spread of fire, but starting a fire is actually the work of humans, either deliberately or by accident. Ricardo Mello, the head of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Amazon Program, said that these fires have been "a consequence of the increase in deforestation seen in recent figures" that the WWF has gathered.

The Amazon has been burning for weeks amid increasing deforestation. The intense smoke was detected by NASA and plunged the city of São Paulo into total darkness on Monday. The daytime blackout, which lasted for about an hour, came after strong winds brought in smoke from forest fires burning in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia, more than 1,700 miles away. Earlier this month, Amazonas (the largest state in Brazil) declared a state of emergency over the rising number of forest fires, reported Euro News.

The fires have shown no signs of stopping, as fire season has only just begun and has yet to peak. If you want to donate I complied some organizations worthy of donating to if you'd like to help.

• Amazon Conservation Team fights climate change, protect the Amazon and empower indigenous peoples.
• Amazon Conservation Association accepts donations and lists exactly what your money goes toward –– whether it's planting trees, sponsoring education, buying a solar panel and preserving indigenous lands.
• Donate to the Rainforest Trust to help buy land in the rainforest. The organization has saved over 23 million acres and counting since 1988.