Wildfires

Wildfires - Siberia

Firefighters have extinguished nearly 100 wildfires across Russia on a total area of more than 7,400 hectares over the past 24 hours, the press service of the Aerial Forest Protection Service said on Tuesday.

"As of midnight on May 22, 45 wildfires were raging in the territory of 23,648 ha, and an active firefighting effort has been ongoing," the statement said.

On Monday, 55 fire hotspots on the area of 20,700 ha were registered in the Russian forests. The largest blazes are raging in the Far Eastern Amur Region, with 13,700 hectares covered by 12 blazes. Large areas engulfed by fires have also been registered in the Khabarovsk Region (960 ha), Primorye (17 ha), Yakutia (2 ha) and the Jewish Autonomous Region (50 ha).

Besides Russia’s Far East, the wildfires have been registered in the Transbaikal Region on the area of more than 8,600 ha, in the Chelyabinsk Region (200 ha), in the Murmansk Region (21 ha), the Republic of Dagestan (16 ha), in the Sverdlovsk, Murmansk, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen Regions, and also in some areas of the Tyva Republic.

The firefighting effort involves some 2,500 people and more than 550 pieces of equipment. Some 33 aircraft are monitoring the situation.