Vast tracts of pristine Siberian forest are lost every year to naturally occuring wildfires. Global warming, corrupt governments and shady logging practices converge to make the problem far worse. The sheer scale of these forests is amazing, the scale of the destruction equally as troubling. Last year an area equal to half the size of France burned.
In one satellite image taken in June 2003, for instance, some 157 fires across an area of 11 million hectares could be monitored simultaneously. The smoke plumes from this conflagration reached Kyoto in Japan, about 5,000 miles away.
... via The Independent
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