The government news agency TASS in Russia reports that the number of forest fires in the eastern part of Russia continues to grow. During the day, the fire in the region was more than 37 thousand hectares (91,428 acres), the most difficult situation in Yakutia and Khabarovsk Krai. In the region of Transbaikalia the area of natural fires has increased to 33 thousand hectares (81,544 acres) and the Tunguska nature reserve is closed in Krasnoyarsk due to the forest fires. The area of forest fires in Siberia is nearly 80 thousand hectares (197,684 acres). This information was announced on July 3 by the Department of Forestry in the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia.
By today, July 3, nine fires were extinguished, however, 108 fires continue. There have been more fires in Russia this year (1287 to date vs. 1025 by this image in 2016) but less land has been affected (436,500 hectares to date vs. over 1 million hectares by this time in 2016).
NASA’s Terra satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on July 01, 2017. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Each hot spot, which appears as a red mark, is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background. When accompanied by plumes of smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for fire. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from TASS.