On Wednesday of last week, the fire stood just a few yards off the roadway, the flames engulfing trees. There are no lights in sight but the night sky glows a dusky yellow, for the Amazon, is burning.

The smell is of barbecue, of wood charcoal up in flames. Daytime in these areas is normally so tough wrapped with thick grey smoke.

For the last seven days, Reuters has been repeatedly driving a 30-kilometre (18.6 miles) stretch from Humaita towards Labrea along with the Trans-Amazonian highway, watching a fire eat its way through the jungle.

On the last week of Wednesday, the raging fire stood just a few yards (meters) off the roadway, the yellow flames covering trees and lighting up the sky. By the weekend, the fire had fallen into the distance but cast an orange glow several stories high.

The fire in amazon is just one of the thousands which are currently decimating the rainforest, the world's largest rainforest and a bulwark against climate change.

Wildfires have surged 83 per cent so far this year when compared to the same period in 2018, according to Brazil's space research agency INPE.

The government agency has registered 72,843 fires, the highest number since records began in 2013. More than 9,500 have been spotted by satellites since last Thursday alone.

On Wednesday, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro enraged environmentalists by making unfounded claims that non-governmental organizations were starting the fires out of anger after he cut their funding.

Global outrage has torn through social media, with #PrayforAmazonas the world's top trending topic on Twitter on Wednesday.

Reuters observed plumes of smoke billowing from the forest, reaching hundreds of feet (dozens of meters) into the air, during a weeklong trip to southern Amazonas and northern Rondonia states.