This aerial photo was taken July 27, 2021 and shows a forest that has been burned at Gorny Ulus in Siberia.
According to NASA, smoke from large wildfires in Russia's Siberia has reached the North Pole "for first time in recorded history." Experts also said that the forest fires are larger than all other wildfires burning around the globe.
Saturday's photograph by the U.S. space agency shows the thick smoke covering more than 3,000 miles (4 800 kilometers) from the Yakutia region of Siberia to the North Pole. This may be the first such event, according to records.
Every summer, wildfires are common in the densely forested area of the Taiga. However, this year's was particularly bad.
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Russian authorities described the Siberia wildfires as "very serious" last year. They were estimated to have caused the release of the equivalent of 450m tons (410 million tonnes) of carbon dioxide over the entire season. But this year, wildfires have released more than 505m tons (460 million tons) of carbon dioxide, so the wildfire season hasn't ended.
NASA estimates that the smoke cloud from wildfires covered more than 2,000 miles (3200 km) east to west, and 2,500 miles (4000 km) north to south. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported the smoke could be seen above Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It is more than 1,200 miles (2,200 km) away.
Extreme climate
One of Russia's most remote regions is the Yakutia Region, or Sakha Republic. This is where the Siberian wildfires mainly occur.
Yakutsk, the capital, was hit with the lowest temperature on Earth, at minus 64.4 degrees Celsius (minus 83 degrees Fahrenheit) in February 1891. However, the region experienced record-breaking temperatures this winter.
The Siberian Times reported that residents were inhaling smoke from over 300 wildfires. However, only half of these fires were being dealt with by firefighters and paratroopers sent in by the Russian military.
Since then, the wildfires have grown in scale and now cover an estimated 62.300 square miles (161,300 km)
Rosgidromet, Russia's weather-monitoring agency, reported Monday that the area was "continuing to deteriorate" with approximately 13,100 sq miles (34,000 km) of forest burning.
Wildfires are a cause
According to Agence France-Presse, Russian authorities are responsible for allowing large areas of forest to burn each year. They also have the right to not intervene if it is more costly than the damage they cause or if they don't affect inhabited areas.
According to Alexei Yaroshenko of Greenpeace Russia, the fires in Siberia have been larger than all the wildfires this season in Greece, Turkey and Italy combined.
He also linked worsening wildfires to climate change and the "continuing decline in state forest management."
He said that Russian media rarely report on Siberian wildfires and that many people don't know how much damage they cause.
"For many years, officials and opinion-leaders have said that fires are natural, that the Taiga is always burning, so there's no need to make a fuss about this. Yaroshenko stated that people are used to it.
