More than two million hectares on fire in Siberia, with turndra on fire destroying the permafrost
▻https://siberiantimes.com/ecology/others/news/more-than-two-million-hectares-on-fire-in-siberia-with-turndra-on-fir
The scientists of the Center for Remote Sensing of the Earth of the Krasnoyarsk Scientific Center have shown how fires developed and smoke plumes spread over the territory of Siberia over the past two weeks.
Pictures: @krasnoyarsk.science
Most fires will not be extinguished, with major cities polluted by fumes.
The worst-hit regions are Krasnoyarsk, Yakutia and Irkutsk in a summer fire season seen as worse than recent years in the spread and intensity of the infernos.
Some 784,931 hectares of wildfires are raging on permafrost zones including the Arctic in Yakutia - officially Sakha Republic - and the Khanty-Mansi autonomous region, causing possibly irreparable damage to the tundra.
Other infernos are sweeping through boreal forests which are known as the lungs of the Northern Hemisphere.
Here, centuries-old cedar, pine and larch trees are turn to ashes.
In many - indeed most - areas the authorities acknowledge they will not be able to extinguish the fires because the areas are too remote or do not threaten people or strategic facilities.
The cost of putting them out is seen as too great.
Eventually rain and snow will do the job, yet there is concern at the pollution pumped into the atmosphere and the loss of vast forest tracts.
