The massive wildfires that have plagued Russia and Siberia are now larger than all the wildfires worldwide combined. Drought and relentless heatwaves with lightning are igniting the fires due to global heating from the burning of fossil fuels that is smashing records across Siberia. The smoke has covered the North Pole and has spread across the northern hemisphere. The fires have now begun to burn in the central part of Russia.
The Moscow Times reports that a top-secret — off the map nuclear warhead facility is under credible threat from theTaiga's (Boreal Forest) flames.
Russian authorities have declared an interregional state of emergency as tough-to-contain forest fires threaten the country’s top-secret nuclear weapons research center, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing the emergencies ministry.
Wildfires have raged in the Nizhny Novgorod region and the neighboring republic of Mordovia, both roughly 500 kilometers east of Moscow, since early August.
The fires have reached the closed city of Sarov, which has been a center for nuclear research since the Soviet era and was the site of the first Soviet atomic bomb’s development.
Today, the research center makes nuclear warheads and is believed to be developing Russia’s strategic missiles, including its highly touted hypersonic arsenal.
As record hot temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius continue to bake Russia, wildfires threaten the nation's nuclear-weapons laboratory and other military facilities. A thick haze of wood smoke blankets Moscow.
While 3,000 firefighters battle flames and try to protect Russia's main nuclear weapons laboratory, the head of Russia's nuclear agency sought to reassure the public that all radioactive materials have been removed.
Nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko told President Dimitri Medvedev all explosive and radioactive materials have been taken away. He said he guarantees there is no danger to nuclear security, no threat of radiation, explosions, or environmental consequence.
Welcome to the Pyrocene.
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