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Almost 44,000 people have signed a petition calling for authorities to declare an emergency in the Siberian Federal District due to wildfires in Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions, RIA Novosti reported.If there was any merit to global warming due to carbon emissions then the rise in volcanic activity would be much more of a concern. However, by all measures, our planet, overall, is cooling - with cold records being broken all the time, and in both hemispheres. And so these wildfires, heatwaves and droughts are simply one aspect of the extreme fluctuations that occur as our planet continues on into an unsettled period where lower temperatures will soon dominate.
As of Wednesday morning, wildfires had covered almost 846,000 hectares in the north of the Krasnoyarsk territory, with officials saying that there was no immediate threat to cities and villages.
However, local residents say that pollution from wildfires in Krasnoyarsk has spread with air flows to other regions, covering many areas with a thick haze and burning smell.
Large swathes of the Arctic, including in Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland are also on fire. Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at Denmark's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said that it was fair to say that July's "Arctic Circle wildfires are now at unprecedented levels."
Comment: US media is getting its digs in at Russia, accusing its officials of being 'too cheap to fight wildfires'.
Reality-check: The vast majority of wildfires in the US simply burn out. Firefighters don't 'stop' them - for the most part they help people evacuate, then help them pick through the ruins.
Also, the US can't afford to 'fight wildfires'. The funds it throws at doing so are all from loans, i.e. the neverending national debt, which is effectively funded by everyone else on Earth.
So the Russians are essentially correct; there is nothing government can do to stop what is happening. In cases where settlements are threatened, they can assist evacs. That's about it.