No change in the weather in sight: Millions of hectares of forest are burning in Russia

The smoke stretches as far as the Arctic and Greenland: Russia has had the most violent forest fires in years. Almost four million hectares of forest are burning, most of them in hard-to-reach areas.

The hamlet of Bjass Kjü-el in the Russian region of Yakutia had almost 700 inhabitants – now it is gone. More than 30 houses and other buildings were burned down there by fires that are currently raging in the Far East and Siberia. The residents had to be brought to safety, the village is to be rebuilt with state money.

The forest fires, however, continue to eat their way through the country: A total of 7,600 emergency services are fighting the fires in 17 Russian regions, currently almost four million hectares are on fire – more than half in areas that are difficult to access, as the forest protection authority “Aviales-Oxrana” announced .

Rapid weather change not in sight

The Sakha Republic, known as Yakutia, in Russia’s Far East is particularly hard hit. The state of emergency has been in place there for weeks, and the wind is always kindling the fire anew. According to meteorologists, a rapid change in the weather towards lower temperatures or rain is not in sight.

“Unfortunately, the weather in Central Yakutia and large parts of West Yakutia has been very hot and windy in the last few days, which is why the wildfires are increasing,” says Yakutia’s Governor Ajsen Nikolaev. “We have to keep adding staff to stop these fires.”

The local rescue service warns people not to go into the forest to pick berries or mushrooms. Volunteers should not go out to fire extinguishing work on their own.

The greatest danger is still ahead

But the situation is serious in other regions as well: in the area around the Siberian cities of Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk on Lake Baikal, thick smoke was spreading, and parts of a national park were burning in the Mordovia region. The smoke spreads far beyond Russia – in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator the air quality is already harmful, reported the Chinese agency “Xinhua”. In the west, the smoke has also reached parts of the Arctic and Greenland.

And the greatest danger is still to come, says activist Ajlan Vinokurow on the state broadcaster “Rossija 24”: “The forest protects this 300-meter-deep, frozen mud from thawing. Should that happen, a whole chain of ecological processes will result can accelerate global warming. “

As the current world climate report shows, global warming could have advanced by 1.5 degrees as early as 2030 – the ecological consequences in the largest country in the world would be gigantic.