Translated material
The fire of the fatherland
The Ryazan and Vladimir fires blew onto Moscow
Moscow woke up yesterday morning in a light gray haze, through which the sun shone palely. Rumors immediately spread that, due to the intense heat that had settled in, the peat bogs in Shatura near Moscow caught fire again, like five years ago. However, rescuers and the authorities of the Moscow region immediately categorically stated that they had nothing to do with it: neither forests nor peat bogs were burning in the region, and the smoke was driven into the capital by the south-east wind from the neighboring regions - Ryazan and Vladimir. As it turns out, forest fires really are burning there.However, this did not make things any easier for residents of the capital and Moscow region. As experts stated, the content of combustion indicators in the air - these are total hydrocarbons and small suspended particles - was exceeded by 1.5-3 times. In this regard, doctors recommended that people, despite the 30-degree heat, spend less time on the street and be more attentive to their health. In the Moscow region, the situation was further aggravated by the fact that in the morning visibility on the roads dropped sharply, which caused a serious accident in which more than 30 cars collided. As a result, four people died.
According to official data, not a single large forest or peat fire has been recorded in the Moscow region in recent days. As the government of the Moscow region stated, over the past 24 hours only “19 small fires with a total area of 11 hectares were noted, but all of them were promptly extinguished.” “The region is constantly patrolling forests from the ground and air,” noted a representative of the Moscow region authorities. “We have enough strength and resources to quickly deal with fires.”
Meteorologists, for their part, attributed the smoke in Moscow to the southeast wind - not strong, but for several days already constantly “blowing” the capital. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, it is in the Vladimir and Ryazan regions that a difficult situation has recently developed with forest and peat fires, some of which are raging right on the border with the Moscow region.
According to the latest data, nine forest and peat fires with a total area of more than 50 hectares are now registered in the Vladimir region. To eliminate them, 282 forest protection officers and the Ministry of Emergency Situations were involved, 94 units of equipment were involved, including one helicopter. And although, according to representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, fires do not pose a threat to settlements and economic facilities in the region, the region is on high alert, imposed by a decision of the regional commission for emergency situations. Every day, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and representatives of air forest protection conduct flights over the territory. On the roads of the Gus-Khrustalny district, on the border with the Moscow region, where the situation is most unfavorable, mobile police posts have been set up to restrict access to the forest.
In the Ryazan region, the fire is burning mainly in the Klepikovsky district. Within a week, 1.3 thousand hectares of territory burned there. Now, according to the regional department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 11 fires have been registered, the fire is raging on an area of approximately 69 hectares. Almost 300 people and 66 pieces of equipment were involved in the fight against it. Voluntary fire brigades are formed from among local residents and patrol the areas adjacent to the villages. In Ryazan itself, according to EMERCOM employees, the smoke is felt only in calm weather. The southwest wind, now dominant in the region, carries all the smoke towards Moscow. And if it simply caused some inconvenience to Muscovites, in the Moscow region the smoke caused a serious accident.
Yesterday at about 8 o'clock in the morning, on the 113th kilometer of the Kashirskoye Highway (Moscow-Don highway) in the area of the bridge over the Oka River, 35 cars collided at once. According to a representative of the regional police department, seven accidents, which involved both cars and trucks, occurred within a few minutes. As a result, four people, including a child, were killed and six more were injured.
The fires have not yet affected the operation of all airports in the capital; they sent and received planes as usual.
In total, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 123 new sources of natural fires were recorded yesterday on the territory of Russia. The most difficult situation was in the Chita region, where about 3 thousand hectares of forest were burning. However, according to rescuers, the rains there gave hope for improvement.