File:Fires and smoke in central Russia (MODIS 2016-09-18).jpg

English: The 2016 fire season continued almost unabated across parts of central Russia, with dozens of fires and heavy smoke still marking the landscape in mid-September. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on September 16 as it passed over the region.

Most of the fires are burning in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), where a warm and dry winter left abundant fuel and tinder on the ground. When sparked by lightning – or human activity – small fires quickly blazed into large infernos as early as April of this year.

An article in the Siberian Times, published in May 2016, reported that government policy was that forest fires in “distant and hard-to-reach territories” could be left to burn to a natural end, with no fire-fighting attempts made. In addition, the article reported that “a new decree in Sakha Republic says the emergency services may stop extinguishing fires in such territories if there is no threat to residential areas, or if costs are disproportionate."

Approximately one-quarter of all Russian forests and about 89% of the forests in the Sakha Republic could be considered to fall under the “distant and hard-to-reach” label. While the policy does not absolutely mean that fires have not been fought in the region, it does mean that many fires have burned unchecked through the spring and summer – and are still burning as the landscape become golden with the changing leaves of the larch as fall approaches.