Current forest fires in the Russian Federation

Forest Fires in the Russian Federation

28 September 2016


Active fires burning in Krasnoyarsk Region and Evenkiya shown on the top map (as 28 September 2016, Source: Krasnoyarsk Joint Science Center for Satellite Remote Sensing). The accumulated locations of the fires (upper map) and size of burnt area (lower map) between 1 March and 28 September 2016 in the Amurskaya Oblast, Buryatija / Transbaikal / Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk of the Russian Federation can be seen on the lower map. The maps are generated daily by the Sukachev Institute of Forest, Remote Sensing Laboratory, Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation. For official information on the status of wildfires in the territory of the Russian Federation see the website of the Federal Forest Service of Russia: http://www.rosleshoz.gov.ru/forest_fires/info/727

Wildfires continued to burn in Siberia. The natural-color image above, acquired on September 18, 2016, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows huge plumes of smoke streaming toward the northwest. Areas in red show where MODIS detected unusually warm temperatures associated with fire. (Source: NASA Earth Observatory)

Residents complain of ‘severe carbon monoxide poisoning’ as satellite images show blanket of smoke across eastern Siberia.

Pictures show the pall of smoke in Bratsk, a city of a quarter of a million people and one of the worst-hit places from a September upsurge in first fires. Irkutsk region forestry minister Sergey Sheverda said: ‘Fires in Ust-Kut and Katanga are producing smoke in the city. Of course, people do not feel comfortable.’

Firefighters say half a dozen wildfires in Bratsk district are adding to the problem. More than 600 people are deployed on putting out the fires along with 123 units of equipment and four helicopters.

But so far more than 3,000 residents have signed a petition to President Vladimir Putin and Emergencies’ Minister Vladimir Puchkov on website Change.org under the headline ‘City of Bratsk is choking from smoke!’

‘For one month we are suffocating from the smoke,’ the petition reads. ‘The weather is hot, and there is a strong smell of burning and smoke. It is not possible to open windows, we cannot go out because we soon feel dizziness…

‘Some adults and children are in hospital with severe carbon monoxide poisoning. We are for clean air! We want to breathe. We have that right. Do not remain indifferent to our health and our future!’ Local deputies have called for firefighting planes to be deployed to put out the fires. Oleg Popov, the deputy of the Bratsk city council told: ‘There is a lot of smoke in the city any we do not see any military aircraft.’

Our earlier story ‘Oil pipes threatened by forest fires amid disputes over the scale of destruction’ shows from satellite images the scale of the wildfires across Siberia.

Recent news from and about fires burning in Russia

Book Publication on the Use of Prescribed Fire in the Russian Federation (published May 2013)

Background on Wildland Fires in the Russian Federation

Bibliography on fire in ecosystems of boreal Eurasia
One of the results of the first international fire science conference in the Russian Federation (1993) was the publication of a monograph on fire in boreal Eurasia, including some selected contributions on boreal North America. The literature cited in the monograph contains numerous publications which in many cases are not easily accessible. To facilitate literature search the bibliographical sources are provided by topic (chapter).
Goldammer, J.G. and V.V. Furyaev. 1996. Fire in Ecosystems of Boreal Eurasia. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 390 p.


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