Wildfires of Russia

Hundreds of wildfires followed last week all time high high temperature and drought.  Dry forests and wind is not the best combination for fire safety.  As a result, more than 40 people dead and more than 1500 houses burned down across the country.  And with no changes in the weather, it’s probably not the end of it yet.

My grandfather’s house got nearly burned down by the wildfire as well.  Luckily, in the last moment there was a change in wind direction which turned the fire away.  Even if nobody died in my home city, fire destroyed more than 500 hectares of the forest.  That’s 5,000,000 square meters!

Big Picture blog covers the story.

Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull

Everyone and their brother wrote about the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull in the last couple of weeks or so.  I read everything from personal complaints of delayed flights, to jokes, to serious analysis of the impact on the economy, and so on and so forth.  And nothing seemed to touch my nerve.  Yes, it’s Mother Nature and she has a way of showing to us how small, insignificant, and fragile we are.  But that’s nothing new, not to me at least.  But what did impress me out of my skin was The Big Picture blog post, filled, as usual, with stunning images.  I think unless you see them all, you haven’t really learned anything about this volcano.