Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Russia Burns - Again

Last year a powerful heat wave triggered massive forest fires in Russia and led to the failure of Russia's wheat crop.   So far this year, 1-million hectares of Russian forests have been burned out, already breaking last year's record.

The far north of Russia is among the areas that have suffered the most. During the last week of July, Arkhangelsk   and the Komi republic had temperatures exceeding 35C. More than 80 fire outbreaks were reported.

The far east has suffered too. At the beginning of August about 50 fires were raging, especially around Khabarovsk, Yakutsk and the island of Sakhalin.   Southern Russia has not escaped: several villages have been evacuated around Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd, where temperatures rose above 40C in July.

Of course this has nothing to do with global warming which we all know is a hoax.  Greenpeace, meanwhile, says bad as the official figures are, the Russian government is understating the extent of these fires which, according to Greenpeace, is plain from satellite images.

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