(Bloomberg) -- President Jair Bolsonaro’s plane was forced to abort a first attempt to land in Mato Grosso state, an epicenter of the forest fires ravaging Brazil’s Pantanal region.

“Visibility wasn’t so good,” Bolsonaro said after the presidential Airbus A319 landed, without mentioning the fires or smoke currently swallowing up the region. “Fortunately, we were able to land the second time.”

The Pantanal region, a vast wetland known as a cradle for endangered species, is facing a record wave of fires this year. Smoke is so abundant that it is expected to darken the skies of Sao Paulo, nearly 1,000 miles away, over the next few days.

In just the first two weeks of September, over 5,000 heat points were reported in the Pantanal biome, the most for that period since 2007. So far this year, the number of fires there is 208% higher than in 2019, according to Brazil’s Spatial Research Institute.

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Bolsonaro, who traveled to the region for an event with agriculture entrepreneurs, said criticism of forest fires was blown out of proportion by foreign competitors seeking to attack the country’s agribusiness.

“We are seeing some fires in Brazil, but that has been happening over the years,” he said. “We have suffered hard criticism because, obviously, the more they attack us, it’s better for our competitors.”

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