OREANDA-NEWS. Smoke from burning Siberian forests reached the territory of Alaska and the western coast of Canada, NASA reports citing satellite images. “Smoke from Siberian fires crossed the eastern part of Russia and is now visible in Alaska, where it may have mixed with smoke from local fires”, said Colin Seftor, an atmospheric specialist at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

According to him, smoke also spread along the western coast of Canada, over the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean, and is also visible over Vancouver and Seattle. Fires in northwestern Canada also contribute to air pollution in the area. The Goddard Space Flight Center is a large space research laboratory at NASA. It's located around Washington. The satellite imagery, based on which the U.S. space agency reported the smoke, was taken using equipment installed on the Suomi NPP weather satellite, which is jointly managed by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Earlier, Grigory Kuksin, an expert at Greenpeace Russia, said in an interview with Kommersant that smoke from fires could reach Alaska. “The smoke that came to Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, he came from Siberia to the Urals, crossed the Urals and even got into the Volga region. And he will return there. Now he is being carried east - he reached Kamchatka and even went on, but, if I understand correctly, they should see our smoke in Alaska today”, he said.

According to the expert, if the direction of the wind changes, Russian millionaire cities may again be in smoke. “The source of smoke has not disappeared,” he said, adding that the situation will change in a few weeks, when it rains steadily. At the moment, Russia is actively extinguishing fires with the help of special equipment