nature

Smoke

I few days ago I wrote about wildfires all over Russia. The situation is still very serious. In those places where the fire has been put out, the smoke is still a problem. Here is, for example, a picture of the Red Square in Moscow.

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.

Nature sounds

Via Michael’s blog post I discovered an excellent web service – free nature sounds. Once you get there, you can select up to four different nature sounds and mix them into a single loop, varying volume and stereo balance. It’s very easy to use and there is a good selection of sounds. You can save the result as WAV file (which can later be converted to MP3), or you can save it as a link which can be shared. For example, here is my mix, which I called “Fireplace“. Just imagine: you are sitting in your own house, it’s dark and a bit chilly, thunder and rain outside, wood burning in the fireplace, giving you light and warmth, and your cat is on purring on your lap. It sounds so good, the only thing I am missing is cat’s vibration which I am trying to replace with my mobile phone.