The Aqua satellite, equipped with an atmospheric infrared sounder, and Terra, equipped with a thermal emission and reflection radiometer, have identified 636 forest fires in Russia.

According to the website, the number of hotspots has significantly increased over the past 24 hours in Russia. It said the most numerous hotspots were in the Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod regions, and in the republic of Mari El. Read more...

On the ground Russian fire fighters, Russian volunteers, Russian citizens and Russian military personnel are fighting the enormous amount of fires (600+) in more than 100 different area"s. The fire fighting units of the Russian Navy are also "looking out" and have been put on alert, read this.

Russian organizations, Russian Prime Minister Putin, Russia"s President Medvedev and loads of other organizations and loads of people, more or less inpanic and in "political react" now more or less "turn to" this new Russian disaster via television and other media, this while they all could have seen this coming.

"It has grown into a bad tradition for Russian authorities to panic at winter cold and summer heatwave alike. Both weather extremes provoke natural disasters: winters destroy water supply systems and leave buildings and whole neighborhoods to freeze without heating, while summers unfailingly bring peat bog fires.

This summer Russia has been hit by a record heatwave, and wildfires are raging worse than ever, destroying homes and causing deaths and injuries. The government is taking emergency relief actions; First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov even proposed closing off the forests to prevent more ignition sources. However, analysts believe that some necessary precautions and advance preparations could have reduced the dramatic impact to a large extent.

Firefighting reports sound more like news from the combat zone. Wildfires have spread across the country engulfing 128,000 hectares of land, killing 34 and leaving 2,210 people homeless, according to a recent Emergencies Ministry report. Two federal ministries - the Emergencies Ministry and the Defense Ministry - are responsible for fighting the wildfires, and their resources include 180 emergencies experts and 4,000 servicemen, 200 special vehicles, and 14 airplanes and helicopters."

Source: Dutchintell.com (http://www.dutchintell.com/index.php/other-russian-news/other-russian-news/133-nasa-satellites-more-than-600-fires-in-russia)