"Huge forest fires put our health at risk"

After Australia, Siberia is burning, indicating that the frequency of such events is on the rise, with myriad dire consequences: devastated ecosystems, risk of desertification, CO₂ emissions, toxic particles, further climate impacts. An expert in atmospheric processes at EPFL, Athanasios Nenes shares his views about it. For weeks, the huge fires that consumed Australia at the beginning of this year were front-page news - and a major cause of global concern. Now, Siberia - Russia's northernmost region - is experiencing wildfires after record spring heat, with temperatures sometimes exceeding 30 degrees in May and an average of 10 degrees above seasonal standards. In 2019, unusually widespread fires swept through a million hectares of forest in the region. And there are indications that so-called "zombie" fires, which survived the winter, are re-emerging across the Russian Arctic. Climate scientists warn that this kind of event will become increasingly commonplace in the future, and studies have even shown that climate change had greatly increased the risk of the massive fire event in Australia.