Russian Wildfire Continue to Burn Near the Arctic Circle

Wood Central.com in a special feature released on Thursday (7-11-24), reported Russia’s worst wildfires in years have burnt through more than 3.5 million hectares (8,648,688 acres) of forests, with the blazes near the Arctic Circle exacerbating climate change and releasing megatons of carbon into the atmosphere.

According to data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), most fires are burning in the Sakha Republic in Russia’s Far North. This data comes following an MSN reports that the Arctic is the new “ground zero” for climate change, with the Sakha Republic reporting much higher temperatures and drier conditions than usual—perfect environmental conditions for wildfires to ignite.

Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at CAMS said, “Fire emissions in the Arctic have been at fairly typical levels for the last three summers, but we have observed the recent fires developing following warmer and drier conditions, similar to the widespread wildfires in 2019 and 2020.”  With Parrington adding, “This is the third time since 2019 that we have observed significant Arctic wildfires, and it has shown that this region of the Arctic has experienced the largest increase in extreme wildfires over the last two decades.”