'Zombie' fires are burning the Arctic after smouldering under snow

By Adam Vaughan

Contains modified Copernicus Sen

There is strong evidence that last summer’s unprecedented Arctic blazes appear to have smouldered through winter as “zombie fires” and reignited this month.

Intense blazes across the frozen north last year led to record carbon emissions that were on a par with those from Belgium, exacerbating the global warming that made the conditions for the fires possible in the first place.

Now as temperatures rise in the region and snow recedes, satellite analysis of last year’s burn sites and the fires erupting …