Severe wildfires raging in a Siberian region of Russia have engulfed more than 600,000 hectares of forest, local authorities have warned.
In the Eastern Siberian territory of Zabaykalsky Krai, a federal-level state of emergencies has been in place since late April, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Despite huge efforts to tackle wildfire outbreaks in the region, which borders Mongolia, 49 forest fires continue to burn, with a total area exceeding 629,000 hectares, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said Wednesday.
Since the beginning of this year, more than 1.4 million hectares of land have been affected by wildfires, according to figures from Russia’s Federal Agency for Forestry published on Tuesday, about three times the total area affected by fires in the United States and Canada so far this year combined.
Smoke from the fires is seen spreading for hundreds of miles, and forecasts from Copernicus, Europe’s climate change service, show the smoke reaching as far as Beijing and the Korean Peninsula by this weekend.
States of emergency have been declared across Russia’s far east Siberian regions since April in response to the wildfires.
On Tuesday, the Russian republic of Buryatia declared a regional-level state of emergency on Tuesday and closed all access to the forests, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Since mid-March, 174 forest fires have blazed in Buryatia, which also borders Mongolia, the region’s forestry agency said according to RIA Novosti. Of those fires, 90% were caused by careless human activity, the agency said.
More than 530 firefighting personnel have been deployed to tackle the blazes, with 22 active fires in the Buryatia region as of Tuesday.
Russia’s wildfire season started earlier than usual this year, with fires recorded as early as mid-March, compared to May in previous years.
Dryer, hotter weather in Russia, exacerbated by climate change, create tinder box conditions that can cause a small fire to spread rapidly.
Across Russia, more than 2,100 forest fires have been recorded this year, official data from Russia’s Federal Aerial Forest Protection Service showed.