Light shines through smoke from raging forest fires near a Russian Orthodox church located 30 kilometers outside Moscow on Tuesday evening. The United Nations declared the fires a world-wide ecological disaster. The flames have destroyed more than 1.5 million hectares of taiga, the coniferous forest-land characteristic of Siberia, and killed more than 40 people since they started several weeks ago. On the island of Sakhalin alone, 700 people have lost their homes in the blaze. With the country's Emergency Ministry recording over 400 new fires in the last 24 hours, President Dmitry Medvedev has interrupted his vacation for emergency crisis talks.