Fires continue to wreak havoc in Siberia, where summer temperatures hit record highs, but have decreased over the past week, Russian forest services said on Saturday, fighting them by sowing clouds and using explosives.
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Siberia has experienced abnormally high temperatures in places since January which, combined with low soil moisture, has contributed to new fires after those that devastated the region last summer, European service noted this week Copernicus on climate change.
Since mid-June, the number and the intensity of the fires have increased in the far North-East of Siberia and to a lesser extent in Alaska, according to Copernicus, causing the emission of 59 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, a record for this month since the start of the measures in 2003. The Russian Air Protection Service said it was fighting 136 fires on 43,000 hectares on Saturday, using explosives to contain the flames and trying to start the rain. with the seeding of the clouds.
Most homes, however, are considered too far away and too expensive to treat, with 333,000 hectares currently on fire in total in areas where firefighters' efforts have been interrupted, he said. This figure is however clearly down compared to that reported a week ago by the service which was over two million hectares.
Since mid-June, regions in the far north and beyond the Arctic Circle have recorded unprecedented temperature records. Anti-cyclones are much more frequent and difficult to predict, causing an increase in temperatures and sunshine, Roman Vilfand, head of the Russian meteorological agency, explained in late June to journalists in Moscow. " This is the main problem and one of the consequences of climate change, " he said.
Satellite images presented on Saturday show that the main fires are still raging in Yakoutia (eastern Siberia) which borders the Arctic Ocean. The region declared a state of emergency on July 2 due to the fires. Greenpeace's forest control service in Russia, which relies on data collected by satellite, said on Saturday that a total of 9.26 million hectares, more than the area of Portugal, had been affected by fires since the beginning of the year.