Filenews 7 August 2021
The figures for this year's fire season in Europe are shocking as, according to the European Copernicus agency, 2021 will be recorded as one of the worst years due to the devastating fires.
In fact, it is expected to be the worst year in two decades at the same time that in the US and other parts of the world disasters are huge as a result of the effects of climate change.
The latest figures from the European Agency show that more than twice as many forest fires have been recorded in the European Union this year compared to the 2008-2020 average, while burnt areas are up by 94%.
In the previous 12 years, in the period up to 7 August, an average of 473 fires were occurring in the EU, burning a total of 148,256 hectares of land. This year, over the same period, incidents have reached 1,210 while the damaged areas account for almost 287,960 hectares.
Copernicus has also announced that this year's July was the second warmest on record in Europe and the third warmest in the world. The average temperature in the Old Continent was measured 1.4 degrees Celsius above the average level of the period 1991-2020.
Indicative of the severity of this year's fire season in the EU is that in the period 2008-2020 the burned areas for the whole year were estimated, in the medium term, at around 295,500 hectares. In 2021 it will reach the average of previous years while we are still in early August.
In addition to devastating fires, this summer has also been marked by heavy flooding, with hundreds dead, in Germany, China and Belgium. It is noted that Germany's interior minister, Horst Zeehofer, said two weeks ago that he had requested the development of a system that would send special alerts to citizens' mobile phones in emergencies, such as "112" in Greece.
Southern European states have traditionally been more vulnerable to fires, but the figures show that 2021 is clearly worse in many countries.
Many countries are burning
Already in Italy, France, Cyprus, Romania the burnt areas have exceeded the average of the previous twelve years, while the picture of the number of large forest fires is similar.
In Italy alone, more than 360 fires have broken out, each burning at least 30 hectares (the minimum required to incorporate an outbreak into the Copernicus register). The corresponding number in France is 199.
Similar crises are under way in other Mediterranean countries, such as Lebanon and, above all, Turkey. At least eight people have been killed in the neighbouring country since late July, while fire forces have been called in to tackle more than 200 fires in 47 areas, the state-run Anadolu Agency reports.
In the first phase, in Turkey, record levels of thermal loads were recorded. On 29 July the heat emission was equivalent to 18.6 megawatts, while the highest July daily value recorded in 2003-2020 was 1.2 megawatts.
In flames one of the coldest places in the world
Unexpectedly major natural disasters go beyond Europe and the Mediterranean, now touching some of the coldest parts of our planet.
In Yakutsk, eastern Russia, which has a reputation for being the coldest consistently inhabited city in the world (the temperature often drops to -40 degrees Celsius in winter), residents have received recommendations to stay inside while the sun is in many cases not visible because of the smoke caused by large outbreaks of fire in the Yakutia region.
This year's fires in Siberia and central-eastern Russia have burned more than 4 million hectares of land. About 170 fires are still underway, despite the efforts of more than 2,400 firefighters, who are supported by soldiers and volunteers.
The fires are so large that Copernicus' CAMS system has found that pollutant emissions into the atmosphere this year are the second highest in history, far exceeding the 2003-2020 average from mid-June.
Clouds of smoke have travelled as far as the Pacific Ocean and to the north, in the Arctic Ocean, and according to Reuters last week the smoke reached the North Pole, which is located more than 3,000 kilometres from Yakutia. If the smoke ends up in the ice, it can accelerate its melting.
At the same time, in California, United States, the Dixie fire has been raging for 24 days, having already destroyed more than 175,000 hectares of land and 184 buildings, while at the same time more than 10 other large fires are under way.
Dixie is the third largest fire in the state's history, "approaching" second place. The five largest fires in California's history have been recorded over the past three years, bringing forest firefighting forces to the limit, despite the fact that in 2018 the state outperformed the UK in GDP.
