WEBVTT - Why Are Siberia's Wildfires So Intense This Year?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.800
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey

0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:12.080
<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. This summer, severe consequences of

0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:16.920
<v Speaker 1>climate change were felt around the world tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods,

0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:22.200
<v Speaker 1>and wildfires. In Russia, for example, has been one of

0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:26.320
<v Speaker 1>the country's worst wildfire seasons ever. At one point, more

0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:31.040
<v Speaker 1>than three hundred wildfires burned simultaneously. Those burning in Siberia

0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.880
<v Speaker 1>altogether were bigger than all other fires in the world combined.

0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:40.960
<v Speaker 1>So what's going on? Russia and Siberia in particular is

0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.240
<v Speaker 1>known as one of the coldest places in the world,

0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:48.040
<v Speaker 1>yet each year it experiences more wildfires of increasing severity.

0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.520
<v Speaker 1>This year was the worst after with more than forty

0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.120
<v Speaker 1>three million acres that's seventeen and a half million hectors burned.

0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.600
<v Speaker 1>The biggest fires were in the northeastern part of Siberia,

0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:05.000
<v Speaker 1>they certainly weren't contained to that region. Thousands of firefighters,

0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:09.000
<v Speaker 1>along with soldiers, emergency responders, and even agricultural workers have

0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:13.040
<v Speaker 1>been mobilized to fight the blazes. In many places, However,

0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.959
<v Speaker 1>officials need even more volunteers and financial resources, and some

0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.200
<v Speaker 1>fires aren't being fought at all. In areas without a

0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.520
<v Speaker 1>lot of infrastructure and few people in settlements. Authorities are

0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.840
<v Speaker 1>just letting the massive fires burn. For the article this

0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.040
<v Speaker 1>episode is based on House to Fork spoke with Zenya Namova,

0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.800
<v Speaker 1>green Peace Rush's Fire Responds project manager, whose name I

0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.399
<v Speaker 1>hope I just said correctly, as she said, the problem

0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.880
<v Speaker 1>is that if the fires start in these zones and

0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.039
<v Speaker 1>they don't send any emergency firefighters there when it's much

0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.120
<v Speaker 1>easier to stop it, then the fire becomes bigger and bigger,

0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.200
<v Speaker 1>and the scale becomes so high that you cannot actually

0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:56.720
<v Speaker 1>stop the fire. According to Greenpeace, these wildfires should all

0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:58.880
<v Speaker 1>be fought when they are small so that they don't

0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.600
<v Speaker 1>get out of control and spread. Unfortunately, right now there

0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:07.440
<v Speaker 1>is inadequate funding to fight all the fires. Nine out

0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.640
<v Speaker 1>of every ten of these wildfires are caused by human activities.

0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.440
<v Speaker 1>Namova says. That includes things like camp fires that aren't

0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.959
<v Speaker 1>put out, sparks from passing coal trains, or old electrical

0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.080
<v Speaker 1>lines breaking. The tenth common cause of the fires is lightning.

0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.480
<v Speaker 1>While human accidents and faulty infrastructure don't necessarily have much

0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.560
<v Speaker 1>to do with climate change, the conditions caused by climate

0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.400
<v Speaker 1>change make the fires easier to start and make them

0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.840
<v Speaker 1>more severe once they do. Siberia is one of the

0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.600
<v Speaker 1>fastest warming places on Earth, with average monthly temperatures in

0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.200
<v Speaker 1>averaging more than eighteen degrees fahrenheit that's ten degrees celsius

0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:51.760
<v Speaker 1>above the average for the period between n and Nomova said,

0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.160
<v Speaker 1>it's drier, it's hotter, and there's more lightning in some areas.

0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.560
<v Speaker 1>When all these conditions are put together, the possibilities for

0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.160
<v Speaker 1>fires is higher and possible scale for fire is getting higher,

0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:07.200
<v Speaker 1>increasing potential harm that the fire is bringing. In addition,

0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.160
<v Speaker 1>helping the fires grow so large and so fast as

0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:14.560
<v Speaker 1>an infestation of silkworms which kill the trees, leaving forests

0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.880
<v Speaker 1>full of dry wood ready to go up in flames.

0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.200
<v Speaker 1>So should the world be worried? Yes, According to scientists

0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.120
<v Speaker 1>and activists, nearby villages in Siberia end up blanketed with

0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.480
<v Speaker 1>toxic smoke, meaning the residents end up breathing on healthy

0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:36.840
<v Speaker 1>air and living in apocalyptic looking landscapes. NASA's Moderate Resolution

0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:41.520
<v Speaker 1>Imaging Spectra Radiometer Earth monitoring tool showed smoke from the

0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.040
<v Speaker 1>fires reaching all the way to the North Pole for

0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:50.560
<v Speaker 1>possibly the first time in history on August six. Along

0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.160
<v Speaker 1>with the damage these fires can do to the environment, people,

0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.160
<v Speaker 1>and wildlife. The fires also released stored carbon and methane

0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.600
<v Speaker 1>into the atmosphere, contributing to the very global warming that's

0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:05.640
<v Speaker 1>increasing their frequency and severity in the first place. Roughly

0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:10.040
<v Speaker 1>six of Russia is also covered by permafrost. As this

0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.440
<v Speaker 1>permafrost thaws due to fires and warming temperatures, soil microbes

0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.720
<v Speaker 1>begin to decompose and release even more carbon dioxide into

0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.360
<v Speaker 1>the atmosphere along with methane, a greenhouse gas around thirty

0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.760
<v Speaker 1>times more potent than carbon. According to Naumova, not nearly

0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.040
<v Speaker 1>enough as being done to mitigate these fires, she said,

0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.359
<v Speaker 1>on the state level, there's still no clear plan to

0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.680
<v Speaker 1>act against fires because of climate change, and no clear

0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.720
<v Speaker 1>plan to act against climate change at all. Actually, a

0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:44.440
<v Speaker 1>Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has questioned the science of human

0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.560
<v Speaker 1>caused climate change before and even emphasized the positive impacts

0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.960
<v Speaker 1>warming temperatures could have. For example, he suggested that melting

0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.240
<v Speaker 1>ice means more access to shipping roots and less difficulties

0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:01.160
<v Speaker 1>searching for minerals, oil and gas. More recently, however, Putin

0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.440
<v Speaker 1>has acknowledged the connection between the climate change and the

0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:11.400
<v Speaker 1>growing natural disasters. Given the catastrophic fire season of Putin

0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.400
<v Speaker 1>announced the funding for firefighting will go up threefold. There

0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.640
<v Speaker 1>are also plans to plant trees and scorched areas, which

0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.760
<v Speaker 1>Naumova says is an unnecessary waste of time and money

0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:24.400
<v Speaker 1>because the forests recovered quite well on their own when

0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.440
<v Speaker 1>people don't get in the way. What Green Peace Russia

0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.880
<v Speaker 1>would like to see happen is a further increase to

0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:35.039
<v Speaker 1>spending on firefighting. In addition, Namova said they would like

0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.359
<v Speaker 1>to see every fire fought from early stages, as opposed

0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.520
<v Speaker 1>to leaving some to burn. They also want to forbid

0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.120
<v Speaker 1>using fire to clear the land for agriculture and industry,

0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.520
<v Speaker 1>and most of all, they want to end risky activities

0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.599
<v Speaker 1>like leaving burning camp fires and smoking in the forest,

0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.440
<v Speaker 1>and to improve infrastructure that could accidentally start fires to

0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.360
<v Speaker 1>begin with. Now, Amova said, we know that nine out

0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.320
<v Speaker 1>of ten fires happened because of human activities, and this

0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.320
<v Speaker 1>means that if we are changing the mindsets and becoming

0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.599
<v Speaker 1>more careful with fires in our normal life and in

0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:12.040
<v Speaker 1>industrial activities, then we actually can minimize this amount of

0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:20.719
<v Speaker 1>fires happening. Today's episode is based on the article Siberia's

0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.800
<v Speaker 1>Wildfires dwarf all others on the globe combine on how

0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.240
<v Speaker 1>stuffworks dot com. Written by Stephanie Parker. Brain Stuff is

0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.320
<v Speaker 1>production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff

0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.840
<v Speaker 1>works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klain. For

0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.920
<v Speaker 1>four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app,

0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.799
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.