Burns are still burning in many inaccessible areas in eastern Russia. The destruction is already unprecedented.
Yakutsk – The situation in the forest fire areas in Russia is only slowly easing. On Friday, the forest protection authority reported 177 fires nationwide. They raged over an area of around half a million hectares. That corresponds roughly to twice the area of the Saarland.
At peak times it burned on more than four million hectares at the same time. More than 9,000 helpers are still in action in the fight against the flames. According to the authority, they will be supported by 33 fire-fighting aircraft from the air.
The environmentalists from Greenpeace recently spoke of “unprecedented fires” in Russia. The negative record from 2012 had already been broken in mid-August. At that time, around 17 million hectares of forest and meadows were burned across the country. In Yakutia in Siberia, around the city of Irkutsk on Lake Baikal and in the southern Urals, the “catastrophic fires” have still not been extinguished, it said. According to its own information, the organization bases its assessment on publicly available satellite data from the Russian authorities.
The republic of Yakutia in eastern Siberia is still hardest hit. According to the authorities there, the emergency services are currently in the process of cutting wider firebreaks to prevent the flames from spreading further. In the summer months there are always devastating fires in Russia. They are favored by the drought. dpa
