Russian authorities say that deadly wildfires have spread to cover nearly 7,000 hectares as hot, dry weather kindles fears less than a year after peat-bog and forest fires devastated central Russia, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.
More than 118 fires are said to be burning, with around 150 already extinguished.
Sixty-two deaths have been blamed on the blazes, and more than 3,000 homes have been burned, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
The danger was said to be most acute in the regions of Yakutia, Amur, Primorsky, and Krasnoyarsk.
Russian authorities were caught off-guard last summer by wildfires that ravaged the country amid a heat wave, killing more than 50 people, wiping out entire communities, and even paralyzing life in the smoke-choked capital, Moscow.