Like the tale of the dead that won’t die, similar are zombie fires, fires that continue to burn, sometimes for years, often underground, and in some of the coldest places on the planet where temperatures can fall to -76F.
What are zombie fires?
As their name implies, zombie fires are tough to kill. They are also called “overwintering fires” for their ability to burn through the winter and some of the coldest places on earth, burning beneath the snow, smoking for months, even long after aboveground claims have been extinguished.
In some cases, fires burning all winter long ignite new blazes after the snow melts, CNN reported.
And, as might be expected, when peat burns, that carbon is released into the atmosphere, where it stays and contributes to global warming.
Zombie fires: Where fires burn for years
Zombie fires have burned perpetually in several forests within the Arctic Circle over Canada, Alaska, and Russia, the BBC reports.
New study found that zombie fires make up a third of the total burn area in the forests in the Arctic Circle.
Siberia is well known as being one of the coldest places on the planet, and at a spot not far from Oymyakon, where temperatures plummet to -76F, underground peat fires continue to burn, already burning continuously for several years, the Siberian Times reports. At least one fire has burned for several years in the area of Mundullakh, not far from Oymyakon.
In 2021, Russia recorded a record number of fires above the Arctic Circle. Experts from Greenpeace discovered numerous hotbeds of smoldering peat below the surface in the Urals region of Northern Russia. Because of the snow, firefighters cannot extinguish the underground fires until spring arrives. Therefore, the fires continue to burn all winter.
A huge threat is that the smoldering peat fires ignite grass and other foliage in the forest once spring arrives, kicking off forest fires.
According to Greenpeace, Russia has only recently started to face the problem of peat fires in the Urals and Siberia, which has brought in some state-of-the-art equipment and experienced experts and firefighters to deal with the fires. The regional government has agreed to accept firefighting assistance from Greenpeace.
Zombie fires in the Northwest
The Arctic Circle is not the only place where zombie fires are prevalent. They are also common in the Northwest.
In a study, published in the journal Nature, researchers found a correlation between large fires and above-average temperatures with a high prevalence of zombie fires. Zombie fires were observed during all six winters following the six hottest summers in the Northwest Territories.
