About 8.4 million acres (3.399 million hectares) of boreal forest in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in Siberia is being destroyed by wildfires. Satellite imagery from both the ESA and NASA show smoke covering much of Russia.
The smoke, which was so thick that most of the land below was obscured from view, stretches about 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from east to west and 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from south to north, according to NASA.
However, This week, wildfire smoke has traveled more than 3,000 km (1,864 mi) from Yakutia to reach the North Pole, a feat that appears to be a first in recorded history.
The Chinese news agency, Xinhua, reported that the Siberian smoke has even reached parts of Mongolia, including Ulan Bator, the capital city. And two days ago, a broad band of smoke-filled clouds could be seen over Nunavut, Canada, and western Greenland.
According to The Independent, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has publicly acknowledged the link between climate change and the fires, has ordered the government to loosen budget strings during the emergency.
Regional governments have long complained about underfunding of fire-fighting services, with Yakutia, in particular, claiming it had only received one-tenth of what it requested.
The Guardian is reporting that environmentalists blame the authorities for letting large areas burn every year under a law that allows them not to intervene if the cost of fighting fires is greater than the damage caused or if they do not affect inhabited areas.
While it may be difficult to ascertain the exact acreage burned this year in Russian wildfires, due to different numbers given by different resources, Carbon emissions are a different matter.
Climate change has been blamed for the Siberian fires, and the amount of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere by this year’s fires is outpacing the record amount of last year.
The EU’s CAMS atmosphere monitoring service estimates that the emissions since June total more than 505 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The 2020 fire season was very severe, but the estimated total carbon dioxide equivalent came to 450 megatons for the entire season.
