Over 30 wildfires raging in Russian Far East
KHABAROVSK. June 25 (Interfax) - Seventy-nine forest fires were registered in the Russian Far East in the past 24 hours, more than 50 of them in the Khabarovsk Territory, the Far Eastern Federal District Forest Department said on Monday.
"The fires spread onto more than 1,700 hectares over the past 24 hours. Twenty-four forest fires were put out and 19 fires were confined in the Far Eastern Federal District," it said.
Thirty-six wildfires are still raging in five constituencies of the Far Eastern Federal District (including 22 in the Khabarovsk Territory, seven on Sakhalin, five in the Amur region, one in Yakutia, and one in the Primorye Territory), the department said.
Over 1,000 people with some 220 machines and 18 aircraft, including 12 helicopters, are fighting the fires.
Over 1,400 wildfires have been registered in the forests of the Far Eastern Federal District on an area of over 126,000 hectares since the beginning of the 2012 fire season.
