The forest fires ravaging Siberia continued to worsen Monday, August 9, according to authorities, fires of such magnitude that smoke reached the North Pole according to NASA.
Read also: With global warming, “zombie” fires are on the increase in the Arctic
If it is difficult to link a fire in particular to climate change, the latter makes these disasters more likely and virulent and Russian scientists note that the current fires are indeed a consequence of the global rise in temperatures.
One of the worst affected regions is Yakutia, a huge and sparsely populated area in northern Siberia, where the situation "
continues to worsen with an increasing trend in the number and area of forest fires.
", Noted Monday on its website the Russian weather agency Rosguidromet.
According to her, more than 3.4 million hectares of forests are currently burning there, including in areas "
difficult to access and remote
".
Thick smoke spreads over large areas, ”she said.
Smoke from the fires traveled 3000 km
The US space agency, NASA, for its part reported in a statement on Saturday that the smoke from the fires in Yakutia had "
crossed more than 3000 km to reach the North Pole, which seems to be a first in documented history. .
According to her, "
thick and acrid smoke emitted by forest fires covered most of Russia on August 6,
" photographed by satellites.
Read also: Climate change: more than ever, the urgency
During a visit to Yakutia in late July, firefighters and local authorities told AFP they lacked men, equipment and other resources to deal with the scale of the fires.
Environmentalists question Russian forest firefighting policy, including a 2015 government decree allowing local authorities to ignore fires if the cost to put them out exceeds the estimated damage.
According to Alexei Laroshenko, a specialist on the issue at Greenpeace Russia, fires have already devastated 14.96 million hectares in this country since January 1, the worst year after 2012.
On Monday, UN climate experts (IPCC) published a report in which they claim that humanity is "
indisputably
" responsible for climate change and has no choice but to drastically reduce gas emissions greenhouse effect, if it wants to limit the damage.