Photo: https://regnum.ru/
On the morning of May 11, 155 wildfires with the total area of almost 17,000 hectares were recorded in Russia. For the past day, 204 fires on the area of 9,588 hectares were liquidated. The largest by area forest fires are in Irkutsk, Kurgan and Sverdlovsk regions, as well as in the Khabarovsk and Krasnoyarsk territories.
According to TASS, the Kurgan Region has 3,719 hectares under fire. In Khabarovsk region, forest fires are raging on an area of 2,384 hectares, about 2,000 hectares of forests are blazing in Irkutsk and Sverdlovsk regions, as well as in Krasnoyarsk region. In the Amur Region, the fire spread to 1,245 hectares.
According to Interfax, a state of emergency has been imposed in the Kurgan region since May 10 due to fires. Meanwhile, the night before it became known that most of the fires in the region had been localized or completely extinguished.
There is a smell of burning in the air in Perm. In the Ketovsky urban district of the Perm region, a natural fire came close to a settlement. Twenty buildings were damaged, residents had to be evacuated.
According to the Krasnoyarsk Territory authorities, 8 people died in the fires and about 20 were injured. The fire destroyed 518 houses and 309 different outbuildings and structures. According to the Krasnoyarsk Territory Government, the main causes of the fires were power supply failures accompanied by short circuits and explosions at the substations. Strong gusts of wind caused trees to fall on power lines, which also caused fires.
In the Krasnoyarsk region, 13 sites were promptly equipped, which can temporarily accommodate more than 1,100 people. Applications for financial assistance were accepted from 700 people whose houses were burnt down, respective payments to them started on May 7.
Employees of the Investigative Committee of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia initiated criminal proceedings over the death of five people in the fire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the profile meeting that in some regions large-scale forest fires undermine the efforts that are being made in the country to preserve the environment. Herewith the President paid attention to the fact that in Russia about 700 houses have already burned down due to forest fires. Meanwhile, Putin called the governors responsible for the liquidation of emergency situations, because the regions have equipment, funds and all the powers.
The head of the state underlined that all conditions to prevent fires were created in the country and it is impossible to let the situation of the last year repeat.
According to Alexander Chupriyan, acting head of EMERCOM, 16 people, including one child, died because of the fires in the Urals and Siberia.
Speaking at the meeting, the head of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Aysen Nikolayev proposed his region as a pilot project for inducing artificial precipitation not only when extinguishing forest fires in hard-to-reach areas, as was practiced last year, but also to reduce fire danger in the areas under control. According to TASS, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which has 256.1 million hectares of forests, which is more than 80% of the area of the region, is fire-prone. This year 1.6 billion rubles will be allocated from the federal budget to Yakutia, which is 5 times more than before. According to Mr. Nikolaev, last year, there was purchased additional special equipment, the flight time of air patrolling was increased four times and the number of forest-fire brigades was doubled in 2022.
Earlier, at a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and regional authorities, Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko proposed to toughen responsibility for the burning of dry grass and fires in forest areas during the fire season. At the same time, head of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov noted that the main cause of man-made fires is not so much the human factor, as breaks on overhead power lines and short circuits in substations.