Taiga in smoke

The fire could spread to China

A state of emergency due to severe forest fires has been declared throughout the Far Eastern Federal District since last week. All regional units of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and air forest protection have been sent to fight the fire, which has already engulfed tens of thousands of hectares of forest. However, so far they have not been able to achieve noticeable success - the relentless squally wind constantly fans and spreads the flames across the taiga. If the situation does not improve in the next 24 hours, reserve air detachments of the RoslesService will be transferred to the Far East from central Russia.

According to the Far Eastern Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, due to the unusually dry and windy weather that has prevailed in Primorye in recent days, there are now more than a hundred fires there with a total area of ​​35 thousand hectares. The most dangerous situation has developed in the Amur region on the border with China, where 9.5 thousand hectares of taiga are burning. Moreover, the flames there really threaten to spread to Chinese territory, which is fraught with serious international problems for the Russian authorities. Due to the lack of special equipment and professional personnel, fire services simply do not physically have time to go to all the new outbreaks that appear. In this regard, representatives of the Rosles Service announced that, according to their calculations, if the funds promised by the government for equipment and fuel do not arrive in the coming days, by the beginning of June the fire could destroy more than 10 million cubic meters of wood. The damage caused to forestry not only in Russia, but also in China, will amount to tens of billions of rubles.

Throughout the region, a ban on visiting forests has been introduced for residents, and all country roads are blocked by reinforced police forces.

Alexander RASKIN