Wildfires keep spreading in Siberia
MOSCOW. Sept 23 (Interfax) - Three wildfires were extinguished in the Siberian Federal District on Monday but the flames kept spreading, the district department of the Federal Forestry Agency (Rosleskhoz) said on Tuesday.
In all, 15 fires are raging across 1,997.2 hectares now; there were 14 fires across 1,568 hectares the day before, it said.
A total of 455 foresters and smokejumpers, 35 fire engines and three aircraft are working to extinguish the blazes.
An emergency situation regime has been put into place throughout the republics of Tuva and Buryatia.
The Far East reported ten wildfires on Monday, six of them burning in the Khabarovsk territory, the district forestry department said.
"The fire spread across 212 hectares over the past day, nearly all of it in the Khabarovsk territory," it noted.
The fires were fought by 116 men, 18 fire engines, two planes and one helicopter.
Almost 2,290 forest fires have broken out across over 1.7 million hectares in the Russian Far East this season. The district had 1,015 wildfires on slightly more than 886,000 hectares in the relevant period last year.
