This may be the end of the tunnel in this crisis.
The vast forest fires that devastated Yakutia, Siberia for much of the summer, are "almost" extinguished, Russian authorities reported Thursday.
This sparsely populated region in northern Siberia has seen 9.9 million hectares go up in smoke, more than the area of Portugal.
Smoke from the fires had even reached the North Pole, according to NASA.
There were only 520,000 hectares on fire Thursday in Yakutia, according to figures from the Russian forest protection service.
The region is currently experiencing a drop in temperature and rainfall.
While major fires occur in Russia each year, they were particularly severe this summer, devastating more than 17.3 million hectares.
Vladimir Putin calls to "learn the lessons"
President Vladimir Putin called on Tuesday to "learn lessons" from the fires that have ravaged the country.
It allocated nearly three hundred million euros to protect forests, at a time when "extreme" fires were also raging in the regions of central Russia.
If it is difficult to link a particular fire to climate change, the latter makes these disasters more likely and virulent, so much so that scientists note that the current fires are indeed a consequence of the global rise in temperatures.
Environmentalists also question Russian forest firefighting policy, including a 2015 government decree allowing local authorities to ignore fires if the cost of putting them out exceeds estimated damage.
World
Russia: "Extreme" forest fires rage in the center of the country after major fires in Siberia
Planet
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Russia
Fire
Planet
Vladimir Poutine
Global warming