Wildfires ablaze early in year due to lack of snow, posing threat to railway in Russian Far East.
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.
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’.
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.
Cries to urgently call state of emergency in Irkutsk region as it chokes in smoke.
At least 90 left homeless in one village after raging infernos, say reports.
Pillars of smoke were filmed over the areas hit by last summer’s wildfires despite the current long spell of extremely cold weather.
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.
Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk suffering smoke pollution and infernos rage in forests after hot, dry weather.
The cost of the recent fires has been revealed as Vladimir Putin today visited TransBaikal to assess the damage en route to a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in Vladivostok
Worrying videos and pictures show how the pristine polar region of northern Yakutia is ablaze.
The fires are now raging some 10 to 15 kilometers from the megaslump crater - a large hole in the frozen Arctic soil which highlights the dramatic speed of thawing permafrost.
The Bristol Bay Times - Serving Dillingham, Naknek, King Salmon and Southwest villages
A prolonged heatwave in Siberia is “undoubtedly alarming”, climate scientists have said. The freak temperatures have been linked to wildfires, a huge oil spill and a plague of tree-eating moths.
Ecologist fears the Macleay River may take decades to recover, with heavy rains likely to affect other waterways
Deadly blaze that killed four people and forced evacuation of 10 villages is now close to being under control
Local charities call for donations after blaze wrecks 500 homes in Alexandra
Residents fled toward the waterside as winds pushed an emergency-level wildfire towards their homes. The town was shrouded in darkness from the smoke before turning an unnerving shade of bright red.
Elsewhere in Russia’s coldest region desperate authorities spike clouds to induce rain and tame wildfires.
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