Many of you have heard about the recent massive forest fires in central Russia caused by the long draught and excessively high temperatures. Over the last few days the fires have moved close to Moscow. The visibility in the city dropped to few hundred meters due to smoke.

I was wondering if there is any impact on the operations at SVO, DME and VKO ?

I am in Moscow now and it has been bad all day. We were even let out of work early on account of the smog!

According to an article in the Moscow Times, ops at VKO and DME have been affected, but SVO was not. Oddly the article does not mention SVO by name, but it is the only other major airport in the city.   The smog, which is actually from burning peat bogs, is coming mostly from south and east of Moscow, which explains why VKO and DME would be more severely affected than SVO. The article mentions planes being diverted to LED or as far away as KZN about 500 miles from here.

[Edited 2010-08-06 09:07:03]

[Edited 2010-08-06 09:07:53]

The BBC is reporting visibility down to 300m at VKO and 400m at DME:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10897116

Earlier today BT Yahoo were reporting that aircraft were being diverted:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100806/tpl-uk-russia-heat-81f3b62.html

They said:

"With visibility low, Russia's aviation authority said at least 60 planes had been diverted to as far away as Ukraine from Moscow's busy airports. Flights and trains out of Moscow were booked solid as residents tried to flee the smoke."