Siberia permafrost ablaze with hundreds of wildfires in world’s coldest region – Half are burning unchecked due to firefighter shortage – “Siberia is dying now”

13 July 2021 (The Siberian Times) – Wildfires on permafrost are ravaging Yakutia – or the Sakha Republic, the largest and coldest entity of the Russian Federation. The scale is mesmerising.

There are some separate 300 fires, now covering 12,140 square kilometres – but only around half of these are being tackled, because they pose a threat to people.

The rest are burning unchecked, with some of the world’s most remote wilderness destroyed by uncontrolled fires.

The savage summer fire season has seen major outbreaks around the Road of Bones, an arterial highway built by victims of repression in the Soviet era between Yakutsk – the regional capital and coldest city in the world – and the port of Magadan.

A powerful video taken from a cruise boat on the region’s largest river, the Lena, highlighted the frightening scale of the fires.

Tourists saw for themselves flames and smoke from the territory of the Lena Pillars Nature Park, a World Heritage site famed for unique ancient rock formations and pristine flora and fauna.

Here, as in other areas of Yakutia, artificial rain was triggered by an Antonov-26 cloud-spiking plane.

Using technology developed in Soviet times, clouds are laced with a chemical cocktail of weather-changing silver iodide, liquid nitrogen and dry ice.

This caused rain which gave the exhausted firefighters a chance to hold back the carnage amid swampy and mountainous terrain.

Across Yakutia on 12 July, some 2,701 people and 323 pieces of equipment were involved in extinguishing the wildfires.

Ksenia Sobchak – a television presenter and former presidential election candidate, whose father Anatoly Sobchak was mentor to Vladimir Putin, spoke of her distress at the fires in this region of Siberia.

‘People are suffocating, birds and animals are dying,’ she posted.

‘It is impossible not to cry seeing the videos I receive.’

She asked: ‘Cannot this problem of wildfires be solved in the 21st century?

‘Is it harder than exploring space?

‘It is awful to watch what’s happening in Yakutia.’

People from the region are also seeking to focus world attention on an area almost the same size as India.

Blogger and activist Roza Dyachkovskaya along with many Yakutians reached actor and environmentalist Leo DiCaprio who told her: ‘I have heard you.

‘I and my management will look into it then we will talk with the authorities in charge to see how we can be of help.’

She had told him: ‘Siberia is dying now. All Siberia hopes for your help.

‘Can you post on your official page about the fires in Siberia please.’ […]

An Antonov plane was used to spike the clouds and ‘make rain’ in the Lena Pillars Nature Park, acknowledged the sanctuary’s director Arkady Semyonov.

He said this year’s summer fire season was worse than 2020.

‘There were fires in the park in previous years, but now the situation is more complicated,’ he said when the burning was at full scale.

‘Even 200 people is not enough to tackle it.

‘This year, there has been unprecedented heat and drought, with almost all fires caused by thunderstorms.

‘And this is the situation practically throughout (Yakutia).’ [more]

Permafrost is ablaze with hundreds of wildfires in world’s coldest region