By Mid-July, Siberian Fires Had Destroyed Nearly As Much Forest As Global Losses For All Of 2019

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Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, is just one region where fires are burning throughout Russia in 2020. Image by Greenpeace International.

According to satellite monitoring data from Russia’s ISDM-Rosleskhoz forest fires monitoring system, the burning began in February, but picked up speed in March.

Since the start of 2020, it’s estimated that fires have burnt through 20 million hectares (49 million acres) of the Russian landscape, which is an area bigger than Greece, and about 10.9 million hectares (27 million acres) of forest, according to Greenpeace International. For context, the global extent of tree loss in 2019 was 11.9 million hectares. That means fires this year have affected an area of forest in Russia nearly equivalent to the planet’s tree loss last year even though it’s only mid-July.

In Krasnoyarsk, where the photographs were taken, 27,461 fires were detected by satellite between April 21 and July 21. Since 2000, Krasnoyarsk has experienced a 9.8% decrease in its tree cover, according to data compiled by Global Forest Watch.


Smoke from the Siberian fires are spreading across Russia. Image by Greenpeace International.

“Photos from the ground or from drones provide a better understanding of what is visible in space images, but they cannot cover even one [large] fire, but only its edge or part of it,” Alexey Yaroshenko, a forest expert at Greenpeace Russia, told Mongabay in an email. “The width of the largest fires can be measured in tens of kilometers.” It’s believed that some fires were caused by lightning strikes, while others were started on river banks, likely by campfires, according to Greenpeace International. Scientists also speculate that “zombie fires,” remnants of last year’s fires, silently burned in the peat bogs of the Siberian Arctic throughout winter and reemerged in the spring.

While Russian authorities are working to extinguish some of the fires, they’re only focused on about 5% of the burning area, according to Yaroshenko: “95% of the registered area of forest fires are fires that no one extinguishes at all — fires in the so-called ‘control zones,’ which are allowed by law not to extinguish. These zones account for about 45% of the country’s forests. Last year they accounted for 52%, but were slightly reduced.”

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https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/photos-show-scale-of-massive-fires-tearing-through-siberian-forests/

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1. and now we know why

despite months of reduced carbon emissions by people around the planet due to pandemic, our CO2 numbers continue to rise.