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(CNN) - Firefighters in Brazil have been working day and night against the rapidly spreading llamas in one of the oldest national parks in the country and a World Heritage Site by Unesco, Chapada dos Veadeiros, department officials said Sunday of firefighters from the state of Goias.
More than 20 firefighters have joined volunteer forces to fight the fire that reportedly began on Friday, authorities said.
Nine military vehicles, a plane and a helicopter were deployed at the scene, authorities said.
More than 3,000 hectares of llamas surround the protected park, which survived its most devastating destruction in 2017, the Brazil Agency reported.
Investigators are investigating the possible causes of the fire and if it was intentional, authorities said.
According to Badalo, a publication from the state of Goias, the flames threaten the Kalunga people of the country's largest Quilombo, a historic Afro-Brazilian settlement founded by former runaway slaves.
The Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park covers more than 240,000 hectares of the Cerrado biome. It is considered one of the most picturesque regions in Brazil and a protected area for a number of endangered species.
El Cerrado, which in Portuguese means savannah, occupies most of central Brazil. With its peculiar twisted trees and rock formations, it is continually threatened by the country's livestock production.
It has been almost a week since President Jair Bolsonaro addressed the United Nations General Assembly, where he tried to divert criticism and international outrage over the Amazon fires in July, which he attributed to illegal activities and the weather and even to "indigenous practices."
"The Amazon is not being devastated nor is it being consumed by fire as the media say deceptively," Bolsonaro said.
Fires