Wildfires

Wildfires - Norway

Hundreds of people have had to leave their homes in Norway as emergency services try to extinguish forest fires raging in the south of the country. Some 148 homes were evacuated around the town of Sokndal, where fires have been burning since Tuesday.

Police say the fires are still out of control and warn that heavy winds could help them to spread. This month alone, wildfires have broken out in Sweden, Germany and the UK. April is very early for forest fires in Norway, and experts have warned of a dramatic increase across the continent.

Wildfires - Siberia

Wildfires tore through nearly 20 towns in the grasslands of southeastern Siberia between April 19-22. The fires injured at least 34 people, four of them critically, and left at least 645 people homeless in Zabaikalsky region. Some 11,800 livestock - including at least 1,277 cattle plus 489 horses - were destroyed, many of them roasted alive or killed after suffering terrible burns, according to various reports. Around 10,000 sheep are feared to have been lost. Some 120 pigs and 1,800 farm birds were burned in the wildfires.

In two cases, the wildfires truly came from China and Mongolia, The causes of two more fires were burning landfills. Two fires started because of breaks in power lines and the subsequent short circuits. In one settlement, residents threw smouldering ash from the furnace (igniting a fire).