The state of alert has been triggered in 77 regions of Siberia. Within days, the fires have already killed 16 people and destroyed nearly 800 homes. In total, nearly a hundred fire starts were recorded this Tuesday, May 10, more than 12,000 hectares have already been destroyed. The situation is particularly worrying in the Krasnoyarsk region, a city located 3,000 km southeast of Moscow, above Mongolia, between Novosibirsk and Irkutsk.
>> Fires in Siberia: 200 buildings on fire and at least five dead, according to local authorities
Several dozen fires are underway there: according to the Russian authorities, they were started by short circuits in the power supply cables. And then the fire spreads quickly because the grassy ground is very dry. To make matters worse, the wind has been quite strong in the region for several days and is limiting firefighter operations. Difficult to use aircraft, so the battle against fire takes place on the ground. The wind also caused trees to fall and power lines to fall. The current is also cut in many places. The situation is also worrying in Kemerovo, a little further west near Novosibirsk, where the main fire is, according to the Russian authorities, of criminal origin.
All this does not please Vladimir Putin. The Russian president has other worries and other priorities at the moment with the war he started in Ukraine. He would do well without these fires, to the point of angering Moscow during a meeting on the subject, reports the Associated Press. “We cannot let the situation of last year repeat itself, we must fight the fires in a more efficient and more organized way”, dropped the boss of the Kremlin, before attacking the regional authorities of Siberia: “You have all the necessary equipment and financial resources, so how do you use the funds you have?”.
Political fuses could blow, when in reality, there is really a lack of means in the face of these often huge and uncontrollable fires.
And the worst is yet to come, summer is not here yet. It is difficult, as always, to see in any temporary rise in temperature a link with global warming. But all the same: in this region of Krasnoyarsk, it is this week 10 degrees warmer than normal. 29 degrees are announced for May 15. Everything therefore leads us to fear a summer disaster in Siberia.
Last summer, 17 million hectares had been ravaged by flames, just in the region of Yakutia, at the eastern end of Siberia. And these gigantic fires had released 16 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere, a disaster for the climate. It’s a vicious circle: global warming increases the risk of fires, fires emit carbon, which accentuates global warming. It should be remembered that according to the Copernicus scientific report published three weeks ago, the summer of 2021 was the hottest ever recorded in Europe. The year 2022 is not starting well either.