Some 900,000 hectares of forests burn in wildfires in Russia in 2022

MOSCOW. June 23 (Interfax) - Over 6,000 wildfires have broken out in Russia since the beginning of this wildfire season, and the wildfire area has topped 860,000 hectares, the Russian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry said in a statement on Telegram on Thursday.

"A total of 6,400 forest fires have broken out in Russia since the beginning of the 2022 wildfire season. The fires have hit 865,600 hectares, including 467,700 hectares (54%) in the Far East and 306,900 (35%) in Siberia," the statement said.

Not a single wildfire has spread into populated localities in 2022, it said.

"This spring, over 2,000 fires spread into forests from fields, meadows and steppes. Whenever an open space is on fire, the regional authorities must extinguish the fire. However, only the Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry keeps statistical records of landscape fires, while regions either completely disregard them or register them as mere heat points.

The federal funding for fighting wildfires grew from 6 billion rubles to 14.2 billion rubles this year, and regions received the money in December, the ministry said.