Time.news – It is about to become the biggest fire in the world, what is ravaging the Jacuzia: denounces it Greenpeace to the Moscow Times. The fire front is 2,000 kilometers long and is absolutely unmanageable unless there is heavy rain.
The Siberian region, the largest and coldest in the Russia, is ravaged by unprecedented forest fires that are now bigger than all other fires in the world combined.
Residents are in state of emergency for weeks, and thick, acrid smoke covers settlements and reaches cities thousands of miles away, while thousands of volunteers have been recruited to fight the fires.
© IVAN NIKIFOROV / ANADOLU AGENCY / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA AFP
The largest of these fires exceeded 1.5 million hectares, Alexey Yaroshenko, forest manager at environmental group Greenpeace, told the Moscow Times. “This fire must grow by about 400,000 hectares to become the largest in recorded history,” Yaroshenko said.
“It is impossible to contain this fire through human efforts. Firefighters should put out one 2,000 kilometer long line of fire“Without major rains,” at best we could save the settlements and infrastructure that are in the path of the fire, “explained the Greenpeace exponent.
Some harmful forestry practices are a key factor behind the unprecedented spread of fires, Greenpeace expert Yulia Davydova told the Russian newspaper, as regional authorities are not required to put out fires in so-called “control zones”, far from the human settlements. Logging, both illegal and legal, is another common cause, according to new NGO data.
According to satellite tracking Copernicus European Union fires in the Siberian forest have already emitted 505 megatons of carbon dioxide, a memory.
The smoke, observed with the satellites of the Nasa, last week reached the North Pole and it seems to be the first time in known history. Across the nation, over 13.4 million hectares of land have been burned by fires so far this year – an area as large as this year Greece – says Greenpeace, citing official data.
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