The fires in Siberia are so many and so destructive that, together, they actually have greater dimensions than all the other fires brewing in different corners of the planet.
The scale of this year’s fires is so high that it has caused smoke to reach the North Pole for the first time in history, NASA announced.
updated Tweet embed Aerosol forecast from August 5 from smoke from # a fire In the Russian Republic of Sakha, crossing the North Pole during Thursday and Friday and across the Arctic Ocean https://t.co/IRmSttpAkM Tweet embed Tweet embed Tweet embed # Forest fires 2021 Russia 🧵 https://t.co/Ia7VB9GLhH pic.twitter.com/fmlAWI2ERC
– Mark Barrington (@m_parrington) August 5, 2021
Sakha region, one of the coldest regions in the world, is now seeing its forests burn unchecked due to rising temperatures and droughts.
Moreover, some environmentalists warn, Russian legislation allows authorities to choose not to fight wildfires if the cost of doing so is greater than the damage they would cause or if they are in undeveloped areas.
The decision to leave fires unattended is due to the fact that Siberia has such a large area that authorities often choose to allow areas to burn where there is no infrastructure, housing or transportation networks.
But this strategy may be largely responsible for the scale of the tragedy in the region, environmentalists warn.
“There have always been big fires in Siberia,” American scientist Jessica McCarty explains to CBS. “What’s different, because of climate change, is that fires are burning larger areas, affecting places further north and consuming areas that were more fire-resistant in the past.”
The Russian Forest Agency says this year’s fires are the second worst in the region in more than 20 years.
Russia is now battling more than 170 wildfires in Siberia that have forced airports and roads to close and led to many evacuations, as well as all other fires burning unchecked, the Washington Post writes.
These fires cause high emissions of gases into the atmosphere.
# fires Several endangered villages in #RussiaNortheastern Siberia. The authorities have evacuated residents of some areas. Local officials say 93 active forest fires have burned over an area of 1.1 million hectares in Sakha-Yakutia, making it the hardest-hit region in Russia. pic.twitter.com/93723fE0vO
WatchtowerGW August 8, 2021
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