GALLERY: A world ablaze, captured by AP photographers in 2021

“Some say the world will end in fire,” wrote the poet Robert Frost -- and for much of 2021, Associated Press photographers captured scenes of a world ablaze, amid rumblings of ruin.

In New Delhi, a man sprints amid the funeral pyres of COVID-19 victims -- too many fires, too much heat, too many victims. On a beach near the village of Limni, Greece, the horizon is lit by the flames of wildfires raging across the eastern Mediterranean.

And at La Palma in the Canary Islands, the inferno is in the Cumbre Vieja volcano. But more than 10,000 million cubic meters of ash turn the world into a negative, with black ash taking the place of white snow.

Not all of the combustion is so literal.

There is fury: the astonishing moment when police aimed their guns at rioters trying to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol; Mexican demonstrators against gender violence, hurling themselves at barricades; an Ethiopian woman’s wrath as she fights for every split pea in starving, war-torn Tigray.

And there are the sorrowful embers of violence. Stoic Palestinians carry the body of a child who died in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, while a continent away, mourners bear the body of a man killed while protesting the coup in Myanmar. And in Haiti, the wife of slain President Jovenel Moise, Martine, leaves a memorial gathering in black widow’s weeds and mask.

There was more to 2021, of course. There was fun: Lady Gaga wore one of the world’s largest dresses to Joe Biden’s inauguration.

There were moments of hope. Even as millions more died of COVID-19, billions were vaccinated. Health care worker Nazir Ahmed ventured to remote Kashmiri meadows to inoculate shepherds, some of them vaccine-resistant. He stands in his protective gear on a hillock, like an emissary from COVID times who somehow found himself in a South Asian remake of “The Sound of Music.”

There are other images that recall the movies, but askew.

Those men on horseback in 10-gallon hats are not the cowboys of classic Westerns; they’re border agents, corralling Haitian migrants as they try to cross the Rio Grande into the United States.

And the man and woman caught in a passionate embrace in Barcelona, Spain, are not characters in a romantic comedy; behind them, a riot rages over the imprisonment of a rapper convicted of insulting the Spanish monarchy. And the streets are on fire.

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A home is engulfed in flames as the Dixie fire rages south of Janesville in Northern California, on Aug. 16, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)

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Haitian migrants wade across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, Texas, to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, on Sept. 19, 2021, to avoid deportation to Haiti from the U.S.Photo by: (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

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Hindu devotees leave after performing rituals on the banks of the Yamuna river in New Delhi, India, on Nov. 10, 2021, during the Chhath Puja festival, held to thank the sun god for sustaining life on earth.Photo by: (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Migrants sit on the deck of the Sea Watch-3 rescue ship in the Maltese search and rescue zone on Oct. 19, 2021. In the prior two days, the ship had rescued 412 migrants from seven different boats in distress and was asking for a safe port to disembark them.Photo by: (AP Photo/Valeria Mongelli)

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Daphne Lendor attempts to force-feed beans to her daughter, who refuses to eat, at a shelter for families displaced by gang violence at the Saint Yves Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 29, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

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Sofia cradles her 2-month-old baby, Abdul, as he undergoes treatment at the malnutrition ward of the Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 5, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

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A migrant is comforted by a member of the Spanish Red Cross at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta near the border of Morocco and Spain, on May 18, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

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A gang member points an imaginary weapon at a rival gang on a corner that divides control of two gangs in the Bel Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 5, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

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A sculpture rests in front of a Grizzly Flats home destroyed by the Caldor Fire in El Dorado County, Calif., on Aug. 17, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)

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Palestinians walk past the remains of a 15 story building that was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, on May 13, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection mounted officers attempt to contain migrants, mostly from Haiti, as they cross the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 19, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

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Police in riot gear patrol near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Sept. 18, 2021, during a rally by allies of former President Donald Trump to support what they call “political prisoners” from the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.Photo by: (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

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A firefighter places his hand on engraved names on the south memorial pool during a ceremony to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2021, at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York.Photo by: (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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A child weeps as he is unloaded from an inflatable raft after being smuggled into the United States across the Rio Grande in Roma, Texas, on March 28, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

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Shiite Muslims flagellate themselves during a procession to mark Ashoura in New Delhi, India, on Aug. 20, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Simone Biles of the United States trains on vault for artistic gymnastics at Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo, Japan, on July 22, 2021, ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics.Photo by: (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

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Kian Navales poses at home in Quezon city, Philippines, on July 6, 2021, holding a pillow with a photo on it of his late father, Arthur, who died from COVID-19. Navales, who also had the virus, says he misses going out for noodles with his dad.Photo by: (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

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Performers dressed as rescue workers gather around the Communist Party flag during a gala show ahead of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, on June 28, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

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Relatives and neighbors wail during the funeral of Waseem Ahmed, a policeman who was killed in a shootout, on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, on June 13, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

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Khushi Mir, left, a transgender Kashmiri, relaxes with friends after a meeting of community members in the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, on June 4, 2021. Khushi and four young boys have begun a volunteer group to distribute food kits to the transgender community.Photo by: (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

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An Ethiopian woman argues with others over the allocation of yellow split peas distributed by the Relief Society of Tigray in the town of Agula, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on May 8, 2021. In war-torn Tigray, it is not just that people are starving; it is that many are being starved, The Associated Press found.Photo by: (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

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Anti-government protesters angry over proposed tax increases on public services, fuel, wages and pensions clash with police in Madrid, Colombia, on the outskirts of Bogota, on May 28, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

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Men carry a dead child pulled from the rubble of a destroyed residential building in Gaza City following Israeli airstrikes on May 16, 2021, that flattened three buildings and killed at least two dozen people, according to medics.Photo by: (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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A man runs to escape the heat from multiple funeral pyres of COVID-19 victims at a crematorium on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, on April 29, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Amit Sharma)

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Military police officer Everaldo Pinto, dressed as superhero Captain America, greets children and encourages them to protect themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic in Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on April 15, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

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Villas on the fronds of the Jumeirah Palm Island in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are seen from the observation deck of The View at The Palm Jumeirah on April 6, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

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Stephen Mudoga, 12, tries to chase away a swarm of locusts on his farm as he returns home from school, at Elburgon, in Nakuru county, Kenya, on March 17, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

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Nega Chekole, 30, a farmer and Tigrayan refugee from Humera, touches his stitched wound in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, on March 14, 2021. Chekole says he was shot by militias before the war broke out in November 2020. Tigrayans by the thousands now take shelter within sight of the homeland they left behind in northern Ethiopia, some of them told to leave or be killed.Photo by: (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

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Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol in Washington as they try to storm the building on Jan. 6, 2021, while inside Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's election victory.Photo by: (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

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Drug users detained during a Taliban raid wait to be shaved after arriving at Avicenna Medical Hospital for Drug Treatment in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 1, 2021.Photo by: (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)