Siberia’s “Road of Bones” closed as early wildfires rage – “We can’t see the sun because of the smog, flakes of ash are raining from the sky. We are struggling to breathe, we really need help.”
By Svetlana Skarbo
30 June 2021
(The Siberian Times) – More than 2,000 people are deployed in extinguishing wildfires raging around Russia’s coldest inhabited territory, Yakutia, now in the third year of an extremely intense season of wildfires.
The first of them ignited as early as the beginning of May right outside the world-famous Pole of Cold, the village of Oymyakon in northeastern Yakutia known for its record low temperatures.
Wildfires continued through May and June, with extra fire extinguishing forces needing to be sent from other regions to help republic’s own teams.
Today Kolyma highway, the major road connecting republic’s capital Yakutsk and the port town of Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk, had to be shut because the fire got too close to the road and was much too fierce for safe driving.
Local drivers shared videos of flame-engulfed forest along both sides of the road, which was barely visible in heavy smoke. The wildfires were moving towards River Aldan 325km along the Kolyma highway.
A cloud-spiking An-26 Cyclone plane was deployed today to induce rain in north-western Yakutia, currently one of the most affected by the wildfires.
“We can’t see the Sun because of the smog, flakes of ash are raining from the sky. We are struggling to breathe, we really need help,” pleaded residents of Udarnik village in Tomponsky district, northeastern Yakutia.
The Siberian Times has kept a particularly close eye on this area because of the field of peat fires continuing to burn all through Yakutia’s severely cold autumn and winter.
The peat fire started right after summer-2020 wildfires, and clearly never stopped since.
Today the republic’s capital Yakutsk was blanketed with smoke from the wildfires.
There is no hope for the situation easing in July, as the heatwave will continue and the air temperature in Yakutia will stay ‘way above the norm’, according to Russia’s chief weather expert Roman Vilfand.
Last year nearly 70% of all Russia’s wildfires were in Yakutia, reported the Ministry of Nature, with over six million hectares of forests and fields burnt. [more]
Kolyma highway in Yakutia, also known as the Road of Bones, is on fire and temporarily shut
Russia’s largest and coldest region is on fire – again, and this year wildfires strike early
10 June 2021 (The Siberian Times) – Two schoolboys aged 13 and 15 were seen working on the edge of a wildfire threatening their home village of Ynakhsyt, Nyurbinsky district in northwestern Yakutia.
Local authorities tried to deny teenagers were involved, but later admitted parents allowed them to work alongside firefighters and volunteers.
The number of the wildfires in the Nyurbinsky district grew so fast due to a long spell of hot, windy and dry weather that a state of emergency was announced in the area, with calls for extra help in both manpower and equipment.
Residents of at least two villages had to evacuate as wildfires got too close to their homes.
The republic’s authorities were accused of downplaying statistics on wildfires by a factor of between ten and twenty by Russia’s Federal Ministry of Nature.
‘The Republic of Yakutia claims that wildfires in Nyurbinsky district burn across 1,057 hectares, while our data shows that it’s over 20,000 hectares’, a statement from the Ministry of Nature said.
Videos from Nyurbinsky district show local residents helplessly attempting to stop crown fires from the ground, then retreating as a mighty wall of fire towers in front of them.
Several dozen firefighters and a Be-200 amphibious plane were sent from the Khabarovsk region to help struggling Yakutia, the world’s coldest inhabited region which straddles the Arctic Circle. […]
The first Arctic wildfires were registered in Yakutia north of Srednekolymsk on the Kolyma River at the beginning of June, a month earlier than last year. [more]
Russia’s largest and coldest region is on fire – again, and this year wildfires strike early
