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Pictures from the Kurgan region in Siberia: The Russian fire brigade is trying to fight a forest fire with fire-fighting aircraft and from the ground - strong winds and drought make extinguishing work difficult.
After all, 1,500 residential buildings could be saved.
It's far from the only fire in Russia.
Alexander Chupryan, Russian Minister for Civil Protection: "Since the beginning of the year, a total of 4,000 fires have broken out on an area of 270,000 hectares in Russia."
There have been 101 fires on 12,000 hectares since midnight, the minister said.
Among the audience: Vladimir Putin.
The Russian President was personally informed about the fires in a video conference on Tuesday.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia: »The situation from last year must not be repeated. These were the longest and strongest forest fires in recent years.«
According to Greenpeace, a record 18 million hectares of forest was destroyed by fires in Russia in 2021.
At least eight people died in the fires in Siberia in early May.
Dmitry Selin, deputy head of Russian forest protection: »Most of the fires hit industrial areas and human settlements. The main reason for this is the networking of the power lines. All regional forces are on high alert.”
The forest fires are caused by drought and heat - also as a result of man-made climate change.
The fires have a direct and indirect impact on the climate and environment: last year, forest fires around the world released twice as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as Germany alone produces in total per year: an estimated 1,760 megatons.
Researchers expect even more fires and thus more CO₂ emissions in the future.
In addition, there are so-called cascading effects, as observed in Australia in previous years: extreme droughts had led to long-lasting fires – although the long-awaited rain extinguished them, it also led to massive flooding and a drastic deterioration in water quality.
