VLADIVOSTOK, May 11 (RIA Novosti) - Firefighters have extinguished 15 out of 25 forest fires in the Russian Far East over the past 24 hours, the regional forestry department reported Saturday.
“Out of 25 forest fires, 15 have been put out, seven are active in the Republic of Sakha [Yakutia], with one of them contained, and three others have been contained in the Khabarovsk Territory,” the department said in a statement.
Over the past day, fire covered some 936 hectares in the region. As of Friday morning, the figure was nearly 13,000 hectares.
The firefighting effort involved 474 people, 40 items of equipment and seven aircraft, including four helicopters.
In the summer of 2010, devastating wildfires swept across Russia, killing more than 50 people, destroying thousands of houses, 2.6 million hectares of woods and a quarter of the country’s grain harvest.
According to Greenpeace reports, last year’s wildfires in Russia were at some point even worse than in 2010.
