Fires in Western Russia

[SiberianTiger]

Fierce forest fires are reported in Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod territories.

Yesterday in Voronezh territory several districts were hit by fires, 271 houses were burned down. 5 people died, 94 have applied for medical care. 556 people have lost their homes. Burning area is about 3,000 hectares.

In Nizhny Novgorod territory fires destroyed two villages completely and three partly, 341 house burned, leaving 600 people without shelter. About 1,000 people got evacuated.

Evacuation is also under way in Ryazan territory. Emercom aviation and fire trains is employed to put fires down, but their work is made difficult by strong wind blowing across the plain.

Two videos of the fires in Nizhny Novgorod territory:

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In addition, 60 homes are reported burnt in Moscow territory.

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Three more firemen have already died today in different places. This is a horrible week.

 

[Urwumpe]

Even more sad, the fires in Moscow don't even bring it into the news here. Even reporting about the highly speculative possible player exchange between Wolfsburg and Munich is more important it seems.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Super hi-res version.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of Moscow and the surrounding region on July 28, 2010. Tiny red dots indicate hotspots of high surface temperatures associated with fires, and multiple clusters of such dots appear east of Moscow. Dull gray smoke mixes with opaque white clouds east and northeast of the capital city.

 

[SiberianTiger]

In the latest news, Emergency Command acknowledges 28 people dead due to unstoppable forest fires. 1,170 residential buildings destroyed, 2,178 people have lost their homes. The Government promises to pay 1m roubles to every family whose relative fell victim to the fires and rebuild the destroyed settlements.

Over 700 new fires appeared on July, 30th, however the Emercom reports putting off 80% of them. 240,000 people and 25,000 vehicles are busy fighting fires (MoD assigned 2,000 servicemen and 50 military vehicles to help the civilian services). People in Voronezh rallied into volunteer firefighting brigades.

However, despite all the efforts, it's difficult to say whether the fires are going to be put off soon. The weather is highly unfavourable to that, being dry, windy and very hot. Due to record breaking temperatures at about 45ºC, VAZ plant in Togliatti (the top Russian car producer) stops production till August, 8, because the facilities are not suitable for working in such heat.

One of the mostly bad hit large cities is Nizhny Novgorod, here are few yesterday's pictures (fully available at http://i-dimka.livejournal.com/123652.html):

Luckily for us, right now we have quite a decent air in Moscow, but this may change as winds change and smoke clouds upproach the capital city again.

There is a photo report of a reporter who went to a village destroyed by fire in the East of Moscow territory. Few pictures are here and the rest are at http://zyalt.livejournal.com/280777.html?#cutid1:

The burnt woods:

 

[SiberianTiger]

Locals fighting the fires with what they have. On their calls to Emercom, they've been replied that they can't receive a firefighting plane, because it's just 30,000 of them there, while planes are required elsewhere - so the people are left to their own devices:

A fire truck sunken in a fire pit on a peat bog where peat has combusted, leaving an underground void:

Putting fire off is made difficult by shortages of water in the required amounts. The local water sources are running dry and water has to be delivered over long distances.

Fire crosses meadows, consuming dry grass:

A burnt village:

Police are retrieving three dead bodies from a burnt home's basement where people tried to hide when fire set on:

 

[Notebook]

For all this destruction and fatalaties, nothing I've seen about this in the UK media. There is some mention of record high temperatures around the Moscow region on weather reports.
Pakistan floods are top foreign story at the monent.

Curent World News page on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/

Its mentioned in the "other news box".

N.

 

[N_Molson]

They showed the fires at the TV here. Impressive. They said that 1/5th of the country's crops are lost. Which is very bad, because the the harvesting season is usually August.

The only good thing is that with all these ashes, the soils will be more fertile next year...

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

For all this destruction and fatalaties, nothing I've seen about this in the UK media.

They're on it now!

BBC News: "Russia mobilises 240,000 to fight deadly wildfires".

BTW, amazing photos, ST.

 

[Jamesep3]

I would have thought to have heard about this here but still nouthing. NZ news never seems to have much in the way big things only the fires in AUS seem to make the headlines and only to remind people that life is so good here aparently:lol:. This seems far more important. Why din't they reaport this in NZ the loss of life is terrible. No chance of that here were in winter and a good one at that, not too cold or wet just ok. Raining today family ill again.

 

[SiberianTiger]

They showed the fires at the TV here. Impressive. They said that 1/5th of the country's crops are lost. Which is very bad, because the the harvesting season is usually August.

The only good thing is that with all these ashes, the soils will be more fertile next year...

Yes, but the reports are, we have lots of wheat in storage left over from the past year, so coming back of infamous

Some more reporters' images, found at http://amelito.livejournal.com/430952.html#cutid1, translation of comments is mine:

Firefighting at air force history exhibition in Moscow (Khodynskoye field):

Fighting a peat fire.

Firefighting in Vyksa, Nizhny Novgorod territory.

Beriev-200 airplane, dropping water on a seat of wildfire.

People of Vyksa.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Image report, continued.

People of Vyksa.

An old woman in Voronezh with Our Lady icon.

Prime Minister Putin visits Vekhnyaya Vereya settlement in Nizhny Novgorod territory.

Burnt birches near Voronezh.

Someone's garden's remnants.

People in Shatura (Moscow territory) help fighting peat fires.

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Pakistan floods are top foreign story at the moment.

To be fair, they have much more fatalities. And there news of floods somewhere make me think that nature is a wildly unbalanced thing sometimes.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Uh-oh.

BBC News: "Russia faces new wildfire threat".

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Roscosmos PAO: "Satellites See 400 Fires in Russia and in the Urals".

Satellites detected 400 forest fires in Russia and in the Urals.
Most of the fires are located to the east, south, south-east of Moscow. Images of the Moscow region show 35 fire spots.
The situation is also rather dangerous in the Urals region, with complications caused by remote location of the fires making it hard to reach and extinguish the fire in the deep forest. 16 fires have been detected in Sverdlovsk region so far, RIA Novosti informs.

 

[N_Molson]

According to the TV news here, Russian governement declared that "the fires were now under control".

The army and the reserve troops have been sent to help the firefighters, but fires continue to spread on the Eastern front. In some remote villages, the inhabitants are fighting the fires themselves with buckets of waters.

The temperatures in the Moscow region are still above 40°C, which make the situation worse. 30 people perished so far.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Информация для россиян:

Создано и работает сообщество для организации помощи погорельцам: http://community.livejournal.com/pozar_ru/ Узнайте, что нужно людям, оказавшимся внезапно без крова, есть ли в вашем городе пункт сбора вещей и продуктов, на какие реквизиты можно перевести денежную помощь.

Такое могло случиться и с вами. Надо помочь...

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An interactive map displaying world's wildfires (upd. on the second look, it's not working right for today somehow):
http://fires.kosmosnimki.ru/

Also, MODIS Earth tracking satellite system's data in KML format for Google Earth, updated daily:
http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/kml.htm

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Wheat Advances to Highest Since 2008 as Heat Wave Reduces Russian Output

“It’s very, very bullish and there’s no sign of it really stopping,” Peter McGuire, managing director at CWA Global Markets Pty, said by phone from Sydney. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it reaches $7 within the next two trading sessions.”

[...]

Milling wheat for November delivery surged 5.4 percent to 205.75 euros ($269) a metric ton on NYSE Liffe in Paris. The November contract climbed 34 percent last month and today climbed to the highest price since trading started in March 2009.

Russia’s wheat harvest may amount to 45 million tons, Anton Shaparin, a spokesman for the Moscow-based Russian Grain Union, said on July 27. That compares with a harvest of about 62 million tons last year.

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The latest wildfire statistics:

• Emergency situation declared by Presidental decree in 7 regions of Western Russia (access to forests and incinerated sites restricted to stop spreading of fire and prevent looting);
• 40 people died;
• 323 people injured due to fires, 48 stay in hospitals;
• Firefighters employed: 129161 people & 19343 vehicles from Emergency Command;
• 2168 people and 157 vehicles from Armed Forces;
• 2768 people and 6450 vehicles from police;
• Unspecified number of volunteers.

Airport in Nizhny Novgorod is shut down by low visibility due to thick smog enshrouding the city. Fires begin spreading to Ukraine and smoke from Russian fires has already been detected in Kiev.

Yesterday fire broke through into industrial area of top secret town Sarov (A.K.A. Arzamas 16) which houses one of the plants for making military nuclear devices (Russian Federal Nuclear Centre), but was extinguished by 20:00 local time.

People in Moscow begun collecting food, shoes, clothes and money for victims of the wildfires. The action is carried out in cooperation with Charity & Social Services department of Russian Orthodox Church.

Youtube videos,

Raging crown forest fire in Samara territory

Sweeping past hell: a truck passes a burning settlement at high speed, drivers scared (in Ryazan territory):

 

[SiberianTiger]

As a grain of humour to add to this thread, here's a translation of an article in Russian yellow press blaming the cutting edge American technology in waging a secret climate war on Russia. The blamed things are X-37B, and, of course, the HAARP (which has already proved to be a reliable counter Bulava system :lol. Found here: http://www.militaryphotos.net/forum...ame-for-Russia-s-abnormal-climate-catastrophe

 

[N_Molson]

lol

Global warming is a more credible explanation...

 

[astrosammy]

:facepalmf course it's HAARP again. :rofl: Let's put them into a HARP cannon.

That fires look really bad, we need a An-225 water bomber.

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iX-16FttPkCulMdckFjFJyOJCXlAD9HCNA0G0

Thick smog from raging wildfires engulfs Moscow
By KHRISTINA NARIZHNAYA (AP) – 1 hour ago


PEREDELTSY, Russia — Moscow was engulfed Wednesday by the thickest blanket of smog yet this summer, an acrid, choking haze from wildfires that have wiped out Russian forests, villages and a military base.


Passengers on Moscow's subway said the eye-stinging haze hovered above the platforms, and City Hall warned of health risks from the smoke, which is carrying harmful gases including carbon monoxide.


"I woke up before dawn and thought I was going to die of suffocation," said Yadviga Pashkova, a frail, 62-year-old former schoolteacher who lives in central Moscow. "It felt awful because there was no way out."

I wonder if the inhabitants of Mars-500 simulation facility notice when we all suffocate here, outside?:WTF: :goodnight:

I think this is making up a plot of a splendid fictional prose!

Some 250 miles (400 kilometers) to the east, about 2,000 army troops and emergency personnel were fighting back flames that surrounded Russia's top nuclear research facility in Sarov.


The situation there was "tense but not critical," Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov said after new robotic firefighting equipment was sent to the scene overnight.


"There is no threat to the Federal Nuclear Center, and there is no reason for worry," Bulgakov was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying. The country's nuclear chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, was quoted as saying that all explosive and radioactive material had been moved off site as a precaution.

Another risk of radioactive contamination stems from the forest fires sweeping through areas polluted by the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, Russian environmentalists said. The fires have the potential to send radioactive dust into the air, Nikolai Shmatkov of the World Wildlife Fund's Russia office and Vladimir Chuprov of Russian Greenpeace told The Associated Press.


But nuclear energy scientists said the danger came not from radioactivity but from fine particles in the smoke.


"The concentration of radioactive elements will be so negligible that the smoke itself will be many more times more dangerous than the radioactivity in it," Ravil Bakin of the Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Energy told the AP. "Fine dust that contains chemical pollutants is the real danger and is much more poisonous than radioactivity."

Medvedev fired the chief of Russia's naval aviation and at least seven high-ranking military officials after fires burned at least half of the buildings at a military base near Moscow. Russian media said up to 200 naval aircraft may have been destroyed.

Note: the last piece is a complete BS, there was no aircraft on the burnt military base! However, some military supplies, including several costly fighter engines, were really destroyed.

 

[N_Molson]

I'm a little concerned by the possiblilty of radioactive particles being sent in the atmosphere by the fire. Especially when the russian "Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Energy" says there is no danger. We remember 1986, the "local" radioactive cloud of Chernobyl spreaded over the whole globe.

I don't like this developement, and Saratov research institute is probably filled with thousands of barrels containing the worst radioactive isotopes possible :shifty:

Also I hope things will go better in Moscow, the situation looks bad there... Maybe they could distribute gas masks ? They are probably plenty of them stockpiled during the cold war...

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

RIA Novosti: "NASA satellites register over 370 wildfire hotspots across Russia".