Siberia’s wildfires are bigger than all the world’s other blazes combined

For Russia, there are two types of fires raging across Siberia: the kind the authorities are fighting and the others they are allowing to burn.

That’s because Siberia is so vast that huge fires can burn without threatening any major settlements, transportation systems or infrastructure — but are still part of a swath of infernos that together are larger than all the other blazes around the world.