Eleven forest fires extinguished in Siberia in 24 hours
NOVOSIBIRSK. Aug 7 (Interfax) - The area of forest fires in Russia's Siberian Federal District decreased from 817.5 to 741.5 hectares in the past 24 hours, the Siberian Federal District Forestry Department said in a statement on Wednesday.
As of early Wednesday, 18 fires have been registered in Siberia, 16 of them with a total area of 741.2 hectares in the Krasnoyarsk territory, one fire with an area of 0.2 hectares in Buryatia and a fire with an area of 0.45 hectares in the Tomsk region.
"Eight forest fires with a total area of approximately 600 hectares have been extinguished," the statement said.
In the past 24 hours, eleven fires with an area of over 300 hectares were put out in the Siberian Federal District - in Buryatia, the Altai and Krasnoyarsk territories and the Irkutsk region.
A total of 499 forestry department experts and firefighters, 19 units of firefighting equipment and 12 aircraft were deployed in order to extinguish the fires.
"There is to threat to residential settlements. Dry storms have caused most fire outbreaks," the statement said.
A special firefighting regime has been introduced in three districts of the Krasnoyarsk territory, four districts of Tuva and throughout the Tomsk region. The emergency regime was introduced in four districts of the Krasnoyarsk territory - Severo-Yeniseysky, Evenkiysky, Boguchansky and Turukhansky.
