Much hotter than before

Mega forest fires rage in Siberia: State of emergency

The devastating forest and wildfires in Siberia have now spread to an area of more than one million hectares in the Yakutia region alone, according to the authorities. According to the Ministry of Civil Defense in the capital Yakutsk, more than 130 individual fires are currently raging in the region. Around 2000 people are working on the ground and in the air to extinguish the fires.

Due to the forest fires, a state of emergency has been in force in the region in north-eastern Russia for weeks. Fires are also raging in many other regions of the world's largest country in terms of area. The extensive forest and wildfires in the Arctic region have also led to huge amounts of smoke in recent weeks. Several towns have been engulfed in smoke.

Air samples were taken, and limit values were exceeded in two towns and two villages. However, no cases of smoke inhalation have been reported to date.

The ministry also published a video of a fire-fighting plane dropping tons of water over the burning forests. The Ministry of Civil Defense announced that 52 villages were struggling with smoke clouds from the fires.

Annual inferno
Russia struggles with fires every year, which destroy a lot of forest and steppe. The European Union's Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) cites much higher temperatures and less precipitation than usual in the particularly affected region, a part of the Russian republic of Sakha (Yakutia), as the reasons for the large extent. Copernicus data shows up to seven degrees more than the long-term average (1991 to 2020) and severe drought.

The Russian forest firefighting unit Awialessoochrana announced that new natural fires could break out due to dry storm fronts. The flames are also spreading due to strong winds and a lack of rainfall. Particularly in regions that are difficult to access, the units often refrain from extinguishing fires for reasons of personnel and cost.