Porto Velho, Brazil (CNN) The smoke is so thick, at times the Cessna airplane had to climb to stay out of it. At times your eyes burn and you close the air vents to keep the cabin habitable. Sometimes it is so bad, it is hard to see how bad it actually is on the ground below.

Flying above the Amazon's worst afflicted state (during last week), Rondonia, is exhausting mostly because of the endless scale of the devastation. At first, smoke disguised the constant stream of torched fields, and copses; of winding roads that weaved into nothing but ash. Below, the orange specks of a tiny fire might still rage, but much of the land appeared a mausoleum of the forest that once graced it.

"This is not just a forest that is burning," said Rosana Villar of Greenpeace, who helped CNN arrange its flight over the damaged and burning areas. "This is almost a cemetery. Because all you can see is death."

The stark reality of the destruction is otherworldly: like a vision conjured by an alarmist to warn of what may come if the world doesn't address its climate crisis now. Yet it is real, and here, and now, and below us as we are scorched by the sun above and smoldering land below.

"This is not just a forest that is burning", said Greenpeace's Rosana Villar. "This is almost a cemetery. Because all you can see is death."

The Brazilian state of Rondonia has 6,436 fires burning so far this year in it, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

Rondonia has 6,436 fires burning so far this year in it, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). NASA says the state has become one of the most deforested states in the Amazon. Brazil has 85% more fires burning than this time last year -- up to 80,626 nationwide as of Sunday night.

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