Russia on Friday launched a national response centre and deployed additional firefighters to battle record-setting wildfires tearing through its coldest region of Yakutia in Siberia.

While Siberia sees an annual wildfire season each summer, the fires have burned with an increasing intensity in recent years, which Russian weather officials and environmentalists have linked to climate change.

In Yakutia, one of the hardest-hit regions this year, fires have already burned through more than 9.4 million hectares (23.2 million acres) — an area larger than Portugal — according to Russia's forestry agency.

The emergencies ministry said it had launched a national response centre to fight the blazes in Yakutia — a sparsely populated region nearly five times the size of France — saying that it would handle day-to-day management.

It added that it had sent another 200 specialists to support the more than 5,000 people currently battling the blazes in the region.

On Thursday, emergencies ministry officials arrived in Yakutia to oversee operations there on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, who also ordered reinforcements to fight the fires.

Heavy smog hung over the regional capital of Yakutsk on Friday, which was declared a non-working day in much of the region over health concerns due to wildfire smoke.

"It's very bad, there's a lot of smoke, it's difficult to breathe," resident Yevgeniya Bubyakina, 87, told AFP.

"It is a serious catastrophe," 16-year-old Yelizaveta said.

Some 3,800 kilometres (2,300 miles) to the southwest in the Urals region of Chelyabinsk, the ecology ministry said that it was seeing a higher than normal level of toxic hydrogen sulfide as a result of smog that had travelled from Yakutia.

It recommended that residents keep their windows closed at night, the TASS news agency reported.

Nationwide, wildfires have scorched around 16.6 million acres, quickly approaching Russia's record fire season this century when 18.1 million acres burned in 2012.

Siberian region announces day off as wildfire smoke spreads
Moscow (AFP) Aug 12, 2021 –

The head of a Siberian region has declared Friday a non-working day and urged residents to stay at home as smoke from raging forest fires raise health concerns.

In recent years, wildfires have ripped across Russia's vast territory at an unprecedented scale that experts blame on climate change, negligence and underfunded forestry management services.

The head of Yakutia — Russia's largest and coldest region that has been hard-hit by wildfires this year — said Thursday that the day off would apply to the regional capital Yakutsk and several other districts.

"Smoke from the fires has an extremely negative effect on people's well-being," Aisen Nikolayev said, in remarks carried by the RIA Novosti news agency.

"In order to minimise these consequences, today I signed a decree declaring tomorrow a non-working day for 11 municipalities," he added.

Nikolayev recommended that residents spend the day at home.

Yakutsk airport was experiencing delays on Thursday with flights being cancelled or postponed due to poor visibility caused by the smoke.

Earlier this week, President Vladimir Putin ordered reinforcements to fight the Siberian fires and sent the head of the emergencies ministry to Yakutia to oversee the operations there.

In the vast and sparsely populated region, blazes have so far burned through more than 9.2 million hectares (22.7 million acres) — an area the size of Portugal — according to Russia's forestry agency.

During a visit to Yakutia last month, local firefighters told AFP that they lacked the people, equipment and resources to deal with the scale of the wildfires.

Critics point to a 2015 law that allows regions to ignore blazes if the cost of fighting fires outweighs the expected damages, saying it provides cover for authorities to avoid fighting wildfires.

US space agency NASA over the weekend said its satellite images showed wildfire smoke from Yakutia travelling to the North Pole, calling it a first in history.