Fiery shaft

In Russia, the number of forest fires has sharply increased as extremely tense is now evaluated by experts to the situation with forest fires in Russia. According to the Federal Forestry Agency (Falh), from the beginning of the year to May 10 there were already 6912 - 4.5 times more than in the same period last year. So, only in yesterday 319 fires were registered. About 5 thousand people, 36 aircraft and helicopters and more than 1,200 units of ground fire equipment participated in their extinguishing.

One of the most problematic regions is now the Amur region. 15 forest fires are blazing there, 11 of which belong to the category of large ones. Over the past day alone, the fire passed about 10 thousand hectares of forest square and almost 5 thousand hectares of nonsense. In Shimanovsky, Blagoveshchensk and Svobodnensky regions of the region, an emergency regime had to be introduced. An urgent transfer to the Amur Region of additional helicopters and employees of the Fire Parachute Parachute Service Falh has already begun.

Not an easy atmosphere in the Chelyabinsk region. Here the emergency mode is valid throughout the region since May 6. Very impressive forces were thrown to fight fires, and during the day it was possible to cope with 129 fires.

In the Nizhny Novgorod region, 58 forest fires occurred yesterday, in Tyumen - 51, in Sverdlovsk - 32.

The head of the Forest Protection and Reproduction Department, Falh Albert Kasparov, told Gazeta that he did not expect the start of the fire season: "This is just some kind of fiery shaft!" According to him, the cause of almost all fires is the “human factor”: “A lot of fires are happening now due to uncontrolled agricultural grasses. In addition, forests are burning along all roads and railways - due to careless handling of fire. "Kasparov also noted that such a heavy start of the fire hazardous season is caused not only by the lack of precipitation and dry weather, but also by the inaction of the authorities in the regions:“ Why they are not prepared, I can’t say - this question should actually not be able to cope with the situation. I hope that in the near future. The situation is stabilized ... There is only one way out of this situation - not to let people into the forests, close access, exhibit cordons.

Fires have already begun in the forests of the Moscow Region. "At the moment, about 10 centers are operating both forest and peat fires in Noginsky, Orekhovo -Zuevsky and Shatursky districts," Kasparov said. True, experts hope to extinguish them in the coming days, especially since rains passed in the region.

05/10/2006 / Vladimir Barinov, the material was published in the newspaper No. 77 dated 05/11/2006.