Raging fires add to Russian misery of heat wave and drought

Russian fires triggered by a record heat wave and drought are burning out of control in a good portion of the country’s eastern territory. Entire villages are ruined by the flames and as of Aug. 6 the death toll was 48. The wildfires liberally covered Moscow under a thick blanket of smoke and have left 4,000 individuals homeless. Some of the blazes threaten to re-release Russian nuclear contamination from the Chernobyl disaster locked up in the trees in certain areas. Russian government agencies, slow and poorly outfitted to fight the fires, are receiving a rare dose of criticism.

Russian fires add to summer of disaster

More than 1.6 million acres in Russia have burned since the fires began, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said. To fight the fires, the government has enlisted more than 155,000 people. The Wall Street Journal reported that even as 293 fires were put out, more than 400 new fires ignited. A total of 520 fires were blazing across Russia on Aug. 6. The record heat wave that started the Russian fires, plus its worst drought in at least 30 years aren’t letting up. Scorching heat will carry on until at least Aug. 12, with temperatures in some parts of the country as high 107 degrees.

Heat is on Russian government

Public anger reached the boiling point as the Russian government struggled to get the fires under control. The latest disaster has underscored the inability of the government to protect Russians from such calamities, as outlined by the Financial Times. Despite soaring energy revenues that have transformed it into a country with a trillion-dollar plus economy, Russia still suffers from flawed governance, a slapdash approach to safety and a dilapidated infrastructure. Nikolay Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Centre told the Times the death toll is much higher in Russia than in other countries where such fires occur as the system is “absolutely dysfunctional”. Petrov said communication was far too slow within the “super-centralized” political system put in place under Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin.

Europeans threaten by nuclear contamination from fires

Nuclear contamination is an additional threat posed by Russian fires. AFP reports that radioactive cesium 137 from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is locked up within the trees and dead leaves in forests in certain areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Philippe Renaud, head of the environmental radiation laboratory at France’s IRSN nuclear safety institute, said If trees in those areas burn, the Russian nuclear contamination would be released to the air where it could possibly be breathed in by people as far away as France.

Further reading

wsj.com

ft.com

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