VLADIVOSTOK, May 7 (RIA Novosti) – Russian forest protection services have extinguished nearly a half of all active wildfires in the Far Eastern Federal District over the past 24 hours, the regional forestry department reported.
“Out of 59 forest fires in the Amur Region, the republic of Sakha, the Khabarovsk and Primorye territories, 27 have been put out, ten contained and the rest are spreading,” the department said Tuesday.
“Fire covered some 1,900 hectares in the past day,” it said.
The firefighting effort involved 674 people, 81 items of equipment and 11 aircraft, including six helicopters.
In the summer of 2010, devastating wildfires swept across Russia, killing more than 50 people, destroying thousands of houses, 2.6 million hectares of woods and a quarter of the country’s grain harvest.
According to Greenpeace reports, last year’s wildfires in Russia were at some point even worse than in 2010.
Updated adding regions in graf 2.