An area half the size of Germany has now been burned in Russia. Even if not all the fires have been put out yet, I should have relaxed the situation.
Moscow – Firefighters in Russia are still fighting forest and wild fires that have now reached historic proportions. According to the forest protection authority on Saturday, there were ten sources of fire across the country on an area of 636 hectares.
The situation has thus eased significantly. In the summer months it burned on more than four million hectares at the same time. 165 firefighters are currently on duty – in the summer there were more than 9,000.
According to official data from space surveillance, more than 18.2 million hectares of forest and steppe have been burned in the past few months. According to environmentalists, this is a record since records began. This means that an area half the size of Germany fell victim to the flames. This includes more than 13 million hectares of forest. Environmental organizations have urged the government to do more to prevent fires of this magnitude.
In the summer months there are always big fires – also in the taiga forest belt, which is important for the global climate. Environmentalists repeatedly complain that many fires are human-caused. Despite warnings about the danger of forest fires, many Russians light campfires in the dry forests. dpa
