Wildfire Pictures: Russia Burns, Moscow Chokes

Fire's Toll

Photograph by Sergei Karpukhin, Reuters

Next to the charred remains of a home in the Russian city of Voronezh, women console each other on July 30.

Across Russia at least 2,000 homes have been lost to fire and almost 2,900 square miles (7,500 square kilometers) have been singed in recent weeks, according to government statements cited by Bloomberg. Already some reconstruction has begun in Voronezh and other areas, the news agency reported.

In addition to the record-breaking heat wave, much of Russia, one of the world's biggest grain exporters, is parched from the country's worst drought since 1972, according to the Associated Press. Saying 20 percent of Russia's 2010 wheat crop had been ruined, the government on August 5 banned grain exports for the rest of the year.

(Read about Russia's parachuting firefighters.)

Published August 10, 2010

Last Stand

Photograph by Artyom Korotayev, AFP/Getty Images

Silhouetted against one of the hundreds of wildfires sparked during the current Russian heat wave, trees stand tall near the village of Dolginino on August 4.

The wildfires' effects are felt even in Russia's biggest city, where the air has grown so heavy with fine particles and carbon monoxide that government health officials are comparing it to cigarette smoke, the New York Times reported.

(See more wildfire pictures.)

Published August 10, 2010

Flight From Fire

Photograph by Mikhail Voskresensky, Reuters

A woman flees fires—but can't escape the heat—outside the town of Vyksa, Russia, on July 29.

Hundreds of miles away, Moscow has seen its death rate double over the past week, the capital city's top health official said Monday. From the usual 360 to 380 deaths a day, the figure has risen to approximately 700, Andrei Seltsovsky announced in a televised meeting, according to the New York Times.

The key cause of the uptick, doctors and officials say, isn't the wildfire smoke but the oppressive heat, for which northerly Moscow is apparently unprepared.

(Related blog post: "Russia Burns in Hottest Summer on Record.")

Published August 10, 2010

Trial by Smoke

Photograph by Natalia Kolesnikova, AFP/Getty Images

Enveloped in a smoky haze, Russians try to hold back a forest fire from consuming the village of Golovanovo—threatened like countless others across Russia by ongoing wildfires.

"The Russian population affected by extreme heat is at least double the population of Moscow," which numbers about ten million, Jeff Masters, meteorological director for the website Weather Underground, blogged on Monday.

"The death toll in Russia from the 2010 heat wave is probably at least 15,000, and may be much higher." (Get wildfire safety tips.)

Published August 10, 2010

White Wedding

Photograph by Sergey Ponomarev, AP

Nightmarish Russian wildfires add a dreamlike tinge to a wedding picture on August 7 in Moscow—a rare spot of celebration amid the worst Russian heat wave on record.

Many Muscovites are running not into each other's arms but toward smokeless regions. By Monday, all train tickets to the more northern city of St. Petersburg were sold out for the near future, state television reported, according to the New York Times.

(Find out why fires are burning bigger, hotter, and closer to home in the U.S. West.)

Published August 10, 2010

Shouldering Russia's Burden

Photograph by Denis Sinyakov, Reuters

Russian service members haul away trees felled to hold wildfires at bay outside the town of Lukhovitsy on August 6.

Elsewhere, on August 7, troops dug a long canal as a bulwark against fires advancing on the Sarov nuclear arms design and production facility, Reuters reported. All radioactive and explosive material had been preemptively removed by August 5, according to Russia's top nuclear official, cited by Reuters. The country's Emergencies Ministry later announced that the Sarov situation was stable.

(Related: "Warming Climate Fueling Wildfires, Study Says.")

Published August 10, 2010

Fire in the Distance

Photograph by Mikhail Voskresensky, Reuters

A house burns outside the Russian town of Vyksa on July 29.

Despite such apocalyptic images, not all of the country is going up in smoke or withering from the heat. A wide swath of northern-central Russia is actually experiencing something of a cold spell, according to a NASA temperature map of Russia released Monday.

(Pictures: "California Fires Rage, Visible in Space" [2007].)

Published August 10, 2010

Photo Gallery: Wildfires

Photograph by Jess Geffre, Associated Press

Published August 10, 2010