The lengthy wildfire season follows a record-hot Arctic summer. People living in Yakutsk are waking up to heavy smog brought from the wildfires raging to the west, east and north; struggling to breathe and with head, eye and throat aches.
Some 5.4 million hectares of land are ablaze across Russia, mostly in Siberia and the country's far east. Water sprayed by planes to fight the fires is ‘now as expensive as Champagne’.
Wildfires on permafrost are ravaging Yakutia - or the Sakha Republic - the largest and coldest entity of the Russian Federation. The scale is mesmerizing. There are some 300 separate fires, now covering 12,140 square kilometers - but only around half of these are being tackled, because they pose a threat to people. The rest are burning unchecked.
Even school children are in firefighting brigades in some areas of Yakutia.
Omsk region reported ‘record high’ number of wildfires and cases of dry grass burning, that turn into wildfires this spring, with one day last week counting nearly a thousand new events a day. Omsk region emergency services said the number of wildfires is seven to ten times above the norm.
Pillars of smoke were filmed over the areas hit by last summer’s wildfires despite the current long spell of extremely cold weather.
Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk suffering smoke pollution and infernos rage in forests after hot, dry weather.
Sakha is now the fourth region in the Far East where a state of emergency is currently in place due to wildfires. The other three are the Zabaykalsky and Amur regions, as well as the republic of Buryatia. Russia’s wildfire season officially began in early March. By mid-April, regions in the Far East recorded nearly twice as many fires as they had during the same period last year, with most blazes caused by human negligence.
The Kostanai Region declared a state of emergency on Sept. 4 after forest fires burned a record 43,000 hectares (the size of Сarribean Barbados island) and forced an evacuation of 1,841 people.
The fires affecting Moscow are concentrated in the Ryazan region, some 250 kilometers to the south. This is not the first time smog has appeared in Moscow in recent months, with local authorities advising residents to wear masks to protect themselves earlier this month.
Gallery | The forest fires have covered an area larger than Greece and are emitting black smog that harms nearby populations.
Most of the blazes are in a region that saw possibly the hottest-ever temperature above the Arctic Circle this month.
Officials say a wildfire in Southwest Washington that ballooned Sunday, causing regional air quality issues, may have been started by a firework or firearm.
Photos of Yugorsk and other cities showed residential buildings fuzzy under a blanket of white smog.
The driest summer in 150 years has turned Yakutia into a tinderbox and seen wildfires tear through the region.
Wildfires in Russia have burned across a combined area the size of Greece so far in 2020, surpassing official estimates threefold. Experts warn that this year’s blazes could become the most destructive in history.
Russian weather officials and environmentalists have said climate change is a major factor behind the increase in fires.
Locals blamed a mining company for attempting to hide what they called an 'ecological tragedy.'
With Russia on Covid-19 lockdown, 77 houses were burned down in Novosibirsk and Kemerovo regions.
Abnormally hot May weather resembles midsummer with air temperatures as high as +35C.
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