Why Are Siberia's Wildfires So Intense This Year?

In 2021, wildfires in Siberia dwarfed all other wildfires in the world combined. Learn why, and what experts say could be done to help, in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/siberia-2021-wildfires-news.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. This summer, severe consequences of
climate change were felt around the world tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods,
and wildfires. In Russia, for example, has been one of

(00:22):
the country's worst wildfire seasons ever. At one point, more
than three hundred wildfires burned simultaneously. Those burning in Siberia
altogether were bigger than all other fires in the world combined.
So what's going on? Russia and Siberia in particular is
known as one of the coldest places in the world,

(00:43):
yet each year it experiences more wildfires of increasing severity.
This year was the worst after with more than forty
three million acres that's seventeen and a half million hectors burned.
The biggest fires were in the northeastern part of Siberia,
they certainly weren't contained to that region. Thousands of firefighters,

(01:05):
along with soldiers, emergency responders, and even agricultural workers have
been mobilized to fight the blazes. In many places, However,
officials need even more volunteers and financial resources, and some
fires aren't being fought at all. In areas without a
lot of infrastructure and few people in settlements. Authorities are
just letting the massive fires burn. For the article this

(01:28):
episode is based on House to Fork spoke with Zenya Namova,
green Peace Rush's Fire Responds project manager, whose name I
hope I just said correctly, as she said, the problem
is that if the fires start in these zones and
they don't send any emergency firefighters there when it's much
easier to stop it, then the fire becomes bigger and bigger,
and the scale becomes so high that you cannot actually

(01:51):
stop the fire. According to Greenpeace, these wildfires should all
be fought when they are small so that they don't
get out of control and spread. Unfortunately, right now there
is inadequate funding to fight all the fires. Nine out
of every ten of these wildfires are caused by human activities.
Namova says. That includes things like camp fires that aren't

(02:14):
put out, sparks from passing coal trains, or old electrical
lines breaking. The tenth common cause of the fires is lightning.
While human accidents and faulty infrastructure don't necessarily have much
to do with climate change, the conditions caused by climate
change make the fires easier to start and make them
more severe once they do. Siberia is one of the

(02:37):
fastest warming places on Earth, with average monthly temperatures in
averaging more than eighteen degrees fahrenheit that's ten degrees celsius
above the average for the period between n and Nomova said,
it's drier, it's hotter, and there's more lightning in some areas.
When all these conditions are put together, the possibilities for

(02:58):
fires is higher and possible scale for fire is getting higher,
increasing potential harm that the fire is bringing. In addition,
helping the fires grow so large and so fast as
an infestation of silkworms which kill the trees, leaving forests
full of dry wood ready to go up in flames.

(03:18):
So should the world be worried? Yes, According to scientists
and activists, nearby villages in Siberia end up blanketed with
toxic smoke, meaning the residents end up breathing on healthy
air and living in apocalyptic looking landscapes. NASA's Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectra Radiometer Earth monitoring tool showed smoke from the

(03:41):
fires reaching all the way to the North Pole for
possibly the first time in history on August six. Along
with the damage these fires can do to the environment, people,
and wildlife. The fires also released stored carbon and methane
into the atmosphere, contributing to the very global warming that's
increasing their frequency and severity in the first place. Roughly

(04:05):
six of Russia is also covered by permafrost. As this
permafrost thaws due to fires and warming temperatures, soil microbes
begin to decompose and release even more carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere along with methane, a greenhouse gas around thirty
times more potent than carbon. According to Naumova, not nearly

(04:26):
enough as being done to mitigate these fires, she said,
on the state level, there's still no clear plan to
act against fires because of climate change, and no clear
plan to act against climate change at all. Actually, a
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has questioned the science of human
caused climate change before and even emphasized the positive impacts

(04:48):
warming temperatures could have. For example, he suggested that melting
ice means more access to shipping roots and less difficulties
searching for minerals, oil and gas. More recently, however, Putin
has acknowledged the connection between the climate change and the
growing natural disasters. Given the catastrophic fire season of Putin

(05:11):
announced the funding for firefighting will go up threefold. There
are also plans to plant trees and scorched areas, which
Naumova says is an unnecessary waste of time and money
because the forests recovered quite well on their own when
people don't get in the way. What Green Peace Russia
would like to see happen is a further increase to
spending on firefighting. In addition, Namova said they would like

(05:35):
to see every fire fought from early stages, as opposed
to leaving some to burn. They also want to forbid
using fire to clear the land for agriculture and industry,
and most of all, they want to end risky activities
like leaving burning camp fires and smoking in the forest,
and to improve infrastructure that could accidentally start fires to

(05:55):
begin with. Now, Amova said, we know that nine out
of ten fires happened because of human activities, and this
means that if we are changing the mindsets and becoming
more careful with fires in our normal life and in
industrial activities, then we actually can minimize this amount of
fires happening. Today's episode is based on the article Siberia's

(06:20):
Wildfires dwarf all others on the globe combine on how
stuffworks dot com. Written by Stephanie Parker. Brain Stuff is
production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff
works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klain. For
four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.