Wildfires in Siberia are Worse than All Other World Wildfires Combined

Smoke reaches the North Pole for the first time in history

By Edward Era Barbacena

The level of wildfires that the world is experiencing today is downright frightening.

In the United States, we are used to seeing repeated wildfires on the west coast. And recently, the Amazon region has experienced them as well. But there are many others taking place throughout the world.

The mother of all wildfires

Apparently, all of these wildfires pale in comparison to those in Siberia. In fact, reports indicate that smoke from Russia’s Siberia region, where wildfires are running rampant, has reached the North Pole for the first time ever — according to NASA.

One expert reports that the Siberian wildfires are more prominent than all other current wildfires across the globe combined.

The space agency of the United States posted a satellite image recently that reveals an acrid smoke blanket covering over 3,000 miles. It stretches from the Yakutia region in northeastern Siberia to the North Pole. Their records indicate that this has never happened before in all of history.

Measuring damage from Siberian wildfires

In this region known as the taiga, wildfires are expected during the summer months, especially in the heavily forested areas. However, this year’s breakout of fires has been much worse than others.

During the summer of 2020, Russian authorities described wildfire activity in Siberia as “very severe.” They estimated that last year’s fire released some 450 million tons of carbon dioxide across the entire season.

However, this year’s wildfires have already released over 505 million tons of carbon dioxide by recent estimations, and the wildfire season isn’t finished yet.

NASA provided estimations of the Siberian smoke cloud. It measures over 2,000 miles from west to east and measures 2,500 miles from south to north. The Chinese media reports that smoke could be seen in the skies above Mongolia, from over 1,200 miles away.

Extreme climate

The Yakutia region, where these Siberian wildfires are taking place, is one of the most remote in all of Russia.

The capital city of Yakutsk at one time had recorded one of the coldest temperatures ever (February 1891), which was minus 83.9 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the region experienced record high temperatures this past winter.

Reports in mid-July from the Siberian Times indicated that residents were inhaling smoke from over 300 different wildfires. Yet firefighters were only attacking about half of those fires. The remaining fires were believed to be too dangerous.

These wildfires keep growing in size, and it is estimated that 62,300 square miles have been burned so far this year.

Causes of the wildfires

Many in the media and environmentalists continue to blame Russian authorities for allowing large areas of forest to burn annually. One of their laws enables them to take no action if intervention costs exceed the total cost of damages they cause or if the fires are not threatening inhabited regions.

Alexei Yaroshenko, a forestry expert with Greenpeace Russia, reported that this year’s Siberian wildfires are bigger than all the wildfires in Italy, Turkey, Greece, Canada, and the United States combined.

He believes that the worsening of these wildfires is correlated to the current effects of climate change and a decline in proper state forest management.

Yaroshenko also went on to say that the Russian media rarely ever reports on the Siberian wildfires, so most people have no clue as to the damage they are causing. Since Russian officials have convinced the public that these wildfires are expected in the taiga, no issues are ever raised.