Siberian Wildfires Reach North Pole ‘First Time’ In History: NASA Shares Satellite Image

By Tharini Ilanchezhian

The smoke from humongous wildfires from the Siberian region of Russia reached the Arctic region at the North Pole for the first time ever in recorded history. It has been a regularity for the past few years of terrifying wildfires ripping across various regions of the world, which has been linked to the environmental changes and the climatic conditions by weather officials and environmentalists.

The UN climate report has revealed that global temperatures have been rapidly increasing in multiple regions across the globe. NASA, the US space agency, has showed its satellite images that reflect the travelling of the smoke from Russia's Yakutia till the North Pole, for more than a distance of 3000 kilometres which is the first time recorded in history. This smoke has blanketed about 3200 kilometres from east to west and 4000 kilometres from the north to south.

According to the Forestry Agency of Russia, this year's flames have destroyed over 14 million hectares, making this the second worst hit fire of the century.voa

A Russian Monitory institute has warned regarding the worsening of this wildfire. The smoke resulting from this wildfire heading along with the clouds could be seen over Canada's Nunavut and the western Greenland on Aug 6th . Sources say that more than about 1200 villages and towns have been worse hit by the fires. It has been a tough task for the firefighters to evacuate the villagers. There have been 3600 people working to limit about half the flame.

The European Union Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service has made estimation that the emission has exceeded over 505 mega tonnes, since the time when this flame evoked. According to an earth scientist of the Miami University, the landscape of Siberia is evolved to burn and there have always been large fires in Siberia.

The difference that is contributed by the worsening climatic conditions is that, it is burning through larger landscapes, extending till the northern band. The smoke has been recorded by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrodiameter. The total landscape covered by the forest blaze in Yakutia, which is Russia's permafrost territory, reached almost 5.7 million hectares.

According to the Forestry Agency of Russia, this year's flames have destroyed over 14 million hectares, making this the second worst hit fire of the century. The last year's fire has been described as 'Very Severe' by the Russian authorities for having generated about 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, whereas this year's fire has exceeded an amount of 505 million tonnes of carbon dioxide already and the burn is not over yet.