Translated material
2021 became a record year for the area of forest fires in Russia since the beginning of the 21st century
In 2021, the area of forest fires in Russia amounted to 18.16 million hectares. This is the maximum value since the beginning of the 21st century, follows from the data of the Rosleskhoz remote monitoring system.
The area covered by fire is comparable to the area of Belarus (20.7 million hectares).
2021 became the leader in the area of forest fires on September 16. Prior to this, the most “burning” year was 2012, when the fire covered 18.11 million hectares.
As you can see from the graph, catastrophic fires with an area of more than 10 million hectares used to happen about once every five years. For the past four years, the area of forest fires has not fallen below 15 million hectares.
According to estimates Greenpeace , by the end of 2021, their total fire area, taking into account other natural areas, could reach 30 million hectares. In total, more than 205 million hectares have been covered by forest fires since 2000.
Earlier, Novaya Gazeta reported that over the past 11 years, the total area of forest fires has exceeded 122 million hectares, which is more than 7% of the area of Russia. This is approximately 166 million football fields, 847 "St. Petersburg" or 5 "Great Britain".
The most burning region of Russia was the Jewish Autonomous Region, where during this time fires covered almost two-thirds of the region - 64.7% of the total area.