Wildfire Today

News and opinion about wildland fire

Wildfire Today

Tag: Russia

Russia declares multiple states of emergency as wildfires threaten thousands, government inaction continues

Author Hunter BasslerPosted on Categories WildfireTags , , , 8 Comments on Russia declares multiple states of emergency as wildfires threaten thousands, government inaction continues

Multiple wildfires across Russia have caused officials to issue multiple states of emergency and evacuate thousands, while government officials are accused of largely ignoring the problem.

The latest state of emergency was issued by Novorossiysk Mayor Andrei Kravchenko on July 14, according to the Kyiv Independent. The city in southern Russia was forced to evacuate around 500 people from the fire that burned at least 153 acres as of July 15. More than 300 people, including workers from the Emergency Situations Ministry, were fighting the fire.

Two other regions declared wildfire-driven states of emergency at the beginning of July,  a Reuters article reported. The Republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, declared a federal state of emergency for wildfires on July 1. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reported more than 107 registered wildfires burned more than 331,000 hectares (~818,000 acres) in the region.

The governor of the remote Siberian region of Tuva made the declaration on the same day as Sakha after a wildfire burned around 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres) driven by intense heat, strong winds, and dry thunderstorms.

“At the moment, 23 forest fires have been registered on the territory of the republic,” said Vladislav Khovalyg, head of the Tuva region. “Most of them are in inaccessible mountainous areas. July as a whole promises to be the most difficult month in terms of the fire situation, and we have to fight for every hectare of forest.”

Experts warned that the nation was unprepared for an alarming wildfire season. The Moscow Times reported that limited state capacity for fire prevention and control, along with ongoing dry grass burning practices, worried experts of the potential for the season to turn into an annual crisis.

The “official indifference” was seen in real-time during the Siberia wildfires, which have burned an area the size of Normandy since the beginning of the year, French newspaper Le Monde reported. While the Russian government is preoccupied with its incursion into Ukraine, officials are neglecting necessary resources to fight wildfires burning throughout the nation.

“The problem is not just in the forest and its poor management,” an Irkutsk resident told Le Monde. “It’s largely in the heads of the people and the authorities, who don’t want to see it or fight it.”

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reported more than 107 registered wildfires burned more than 331,000 hectares (~818,000 acres) in the region.

Russia’s wildfire problem is exacerbated by Earth’s changing climate. Recent research has shown wildfires will worsen in the coming years, even in areas where wildfires are currently rare, such as Russia’s alpine regions. Smoke from the worsening wildfires, e.g. in Siberia, is projected to cause thousands of deaths and billions in costs for East Asia.

RELATED: Climate change will make wildfires worse, even in areas that don’t have wildfires today

The colors on the Russian Hydrometeorological Center’s map below represent the number of days of predicted “high” and “extreme” fire danger in April, according to the Moscow Times. The purple indicates less than one day, the yellow between one and three days, pink between four and six days, red between seven and nine days, and dark red over ten days.

Russian fire map
Russian fire map

Rare nesting stork hatches eggs as wildfire burns

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags
Screengrab from the video below.

A surveillance camera overlooking an endangered oriental white stork nest in Russia’s Far East captured a scene of a wildfire spreading in a field on April 28. The fire went by without doing any harm to the birds. The camera was installed at a power pylon as a part of World Wildlife Fund Russia project to monitor the stork family online.

Satellite photos of wildfires in Siberia

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

Two photos taken May 9 by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 satellite of wildfires in Siberia highlight flames, and in the other, smoke. The sensors used were RGB-natural color and SWIR-enhanced infrared.

On that date wildfires blazed in Russia’s Far East around Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a city of nearly 264,000. The Siberian Times published images of the fires.

ESA satellite photo wildfire siberia

Numerous wildfires burning in Russia’s Amur province

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags

Above:  NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured this natural-color image of smoke streaming from wildfires on April 4, 2018. Recently charred areas appear black. Rivers, still ice-covered, are white. Heat at the fires is represented by red dots.

NASA reports on wildfires in Russia seen from space:

As is often the case in the spring, satellites detected dozens of fires burning in Russia’s far eastern Amur province in late-March 2018. Fires usually flare up around the time that the winter snow cover melts.

The fires were initially quite small. Most of them were probably lit by people, mainly to burn dried grasses and old crop debris from fields. People in the area routinely light fires in the spring to fertilize the soil, maintain pasturelands, and prevent forest encroachment.

Many of the fires near the Amur and Zeya rivers spread rapidly over the following week. By April, several were raging out of control—in some cases burning through forests. Dahurian larch dominates forests in Amur, though deciduous trees such as birch and aspen are also common.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this natural-color image of smoke streaming from several fires on April 4, 2018. Recently charred areas appear black. Rivers, still ice-covered, are white.

Hundreds of firefighters are working in the region, according to news reports. However, the fires are proving difficult to control and have spread about 20,000 hectares (80 square miles) per day. On April 5, authorities reported extinguishing 15 fires, but 23 new fires emerged on the same day.

Millions of acres burning in Siberia

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

Above: Fires in Russia detected by a NASA satellite September 28, 2016.

Many wildfires are burning in eastern Siberia, creating massive amounts of smoke. Greenpeace reports that last week almost 5 million acres were involved. The fires have forced school closures in Bratsk and Ust-Kut in the Irkutsk region where thousands of children have been sent home according to local media.

Wreckage found of missing Russian air tanker

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , ,

This article first appeared on Fire Aviation.

Russian rescuers
Rescuers in Russia board a helicopter to fly to the site of the air tanker crash. Screen shot from EMERCOM of Russia video.

The wreckage of the Russian air tanker that was reported missing in Siberia on July 1 has been found. Rescuers found the debris of the Ilyushin IL-76 plane at approximately 2 a.m. Moscow time in the Kachug District, 9 km southeast of the settlement of Rybny Uyan.

Сегодня при обследовании места предполагаемого крушения самолета Ил-76 МЧС России летчиком-наблюдателем Авиалесоохраны Иркутской области Антипиным Александром в Качугском районе было обнаружено место крушения самолета Ил-76 МЧС России. В настоящее время десантники-пожарные Федеральной Авиалесоохраны в глухом лесу, где упал самолет, проводят расчистку площадки для приземления вертолета со спасателями МЧС. #леснойпожар #лес #пламя #героизм #парашютисты #десантники #огонь #пожар #лесной_пожарный #Avialesookhrana #Forest #fire #firefighter #smokejumpers #лесныепожары #bomberos #авиация #firefighterslife #пламя #aviation #plane #bombeiros #самолет #авиалесоохрана #рослесхоз #мчс #ил76 #трагедия

A photo posted by Федеральная Авиалесоохрана (@avialesookhrana) on

From the air the in the smoky conditions in the forest the only recognizable part of the aircraft was the tail.

Initially there were conflicting reports on the number of personnel on board, ranging from 9 to 11, but Russian authorities on Sunday confirmed there were 10. The remains of six and one flight recorder have been located. Marines are clearing an area to be used as a helispot.

Below is an excerpt from an article in the New Indian Express:

…A Russian aviation agencies source told TASS news agency that the plane most likely lost control because of interference from hot air from the wildfire that it was trying to douse with water.

“It’s possible that hot air from the wildfires got into the engines, the plane lost propulsion and could not gain altitude, hit the top of the trees and fell,” the source was quoted as saying.

The plane’s tail was discovered by another firefighter on today morning, said the Russian forestry agency’s aviation unit.

Last week another firefighter died on duty in Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka region, the regional government revealed.

The forestry agency’s aviation unit said today that over 43 thousand hectares of forest land is burning in Russia, mostly in Siberia.

But Russia’s Greenpeace which monitors wildfires via satellite data said government figures are vastly underestimated, with 415 thousand hectares burning in Irkutsk region alone.