Vast wildfires in Russia's Yakutia set emissions record - monitor

MOSCOW: Summer wildfires have already produced a record amount of carbon emissions in Russia's Siberian region of Yakutia, with still more weeks of the fire season to come, according to the European Union's Copernicus satellite monitoring unit.

Environmentalists fear the fires, fuelled by hot weather, may thaw Siberian permafrost and peatlands, releasing even more carbon that was long stored in the frozen tundra. So far, this year's fires have torn through more than 4.2 million hectares in Yakutia, sending enormous plumes of smoke as far as the North Pole this week thousands of kilometers away.