Vladimir Putin orders the deployment of additional emergency forces to fight forest fires
Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen to intervene in the battle against hundreds of forest fires, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, ordering the deployment of more emergency forces to affected areas.
Putin ordered the Russian Emergencies Ministry to deploy more firefighting planes in the affected areas, and also ordered regional governors to propose measures on how best to help the fire-affected areas.
Most of the fires in Russia today were burning in Siberia, especially in the Yakutia region and around Lake Baikal.
And the website "The Cyprian Times" wrote that the fires burned more than 6 million hectares of forests and pastures in the Yakutia region alone.
Smoke hung over some villages and towns for weeks. The smoke reached the Ural Mountains, 3,000 km away, and covered the cities of Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.
More than 8,000 relief workers are working to try to put out the fires, according to the Forest Air Protection Authority, which also said that the number of raging fires is estimated at 270, spread over an area of 3.4 million hectares.
It is expected that the climate in the affected areas in Siberia will continue to be dry, warm and windy in the coming days, wiping out hopes of rain, which is in many cases the only way to completely extinguish the fires.
