The Russian defense minister has prepared a plan to include military personnel to help the Emergencies Ministry in the battle against raging wildfires.
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov presented the plan to President Dmitry Medvedev during a meeting at the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Saturday.
"We have created regional command points for our troops who could help in extinguishing the wildfires," Serdyukov said.
The Russian president told the minister that the military's actions must be coordinated with the Emergencies Ministry.
"The Defense Ministry has other tasks, but nonetheless it should support our ministry that is fighting the fires, and this needs to be done especially using those human resources which are accustomed to the conditions in each individual region," Medvedev said.
Medvedev noted that the wildfires are "a serious natural disaster which happens about every 30-40 years."
The defense minister said that in the Moscow region alone there are several battalions filling tankers with water and that in other regions more than 300 pieces of equipment had sent to put out the fires.
"We have put in everything we have, including all of our fire brigades," Serdyukov said.
Over the last 24 hours, over 1,000 homes have been destroyed and entire villages burned to the ground in the largest wildfire ever to hit the European part of Russia.
Earlier on Friday, Medvedev ordered the government to take urgent additional measures to fight the fires and to allocate funds for damage compensation. Medvedev has also called for proposals to be drawn up on the purchase of additional firefighting equipment, including Be-200 aircraft.
Temperatures across much of western and central Russia have topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) during the past five weeks, causing peat bog and forest fires and creating what is thought to be the worst drought since 1972.
SOCHI, July 31 (RIA Novosti)
