No smoke without fire

The Federal Forestry Agency does not expect a repetition of last year's situation with forest fires in the Moscow region. And ecologists from Greenpeace about this of a completely different opinion. The Ministry of Emergencies has not yet made forecasts, but they admit that the situation with fires in Russia is difficult.

According to the head of Rosleskhoz, Viktor Maslyakov, in the suburbs “powerful forces to extinguish fires are“ deployed ”. He claims that at the moment there is a serious flutter of peat bogs, and the number of forestry workers is also increased.

The Rosleskhoz claims that the number of forestry workers and the system of control and access of citizens to peat bogs has been increased in the Moscow Region.

Prior to the onset of winter, about 30% of all peatants should be flooded, and the rest should be in 2012-2013. Yesterday, representatives of the Ministry of Emergencies said that all fires that arose in the suburbs were extinguished or localized.

The head of the department assures: there are no fires in the suburbs. Nevertheless, Maslyakov admits that the summer will be tense and difficult. In the Rosslesakhoz, they are convinced that the main factor of fires is agricultural activities and uncontrolled rest.

Even in May, activists of Greenpeace Russia discovered the foci of fire on a drained peat bog 100 kilometers from Moscow, near the village of Yasnikovo in the Sergiev Posad district. The area of ​​the found peat is about 500 hectares, and in the immediate vicinity there are several settlements - the village of Konstantinovo and the village of Yasnikovo and Nikulskoye. Activists took up the fire extinguishing, and in the meantime, the information about the fire in the Sergeyevo-Posad district was refuted.

Fire in the forest. Photo: Alexey Kudenko/RIA Novosti

The First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Viktor Zubkov also believes that the situation with fires in the country is not easy, but “controlled”. During his meeting, he persistently invited the leaders of the regions to “do business”, and not “ask the center of money”.

“Work with municipalities, heads of settlements, carry out gatherings with people, forbid you and entry into the forest,” Zubkov called. According to him, in 2011 36 billion rubles were allocated for the maintenance of forestry, that is, almost 2 times more than in 2010.

The first deputy prime minister also called on the regional authorities “somehow” to occupy children and recalled how the schoolchildren set fire to the forest last year.

According to Zubkov, the maximum (fifth) class of fire hazard in a number of regions, in particular, in the Tver and Arkhangelsk regions, is expected.

On Thursday, the director of the Department of Supervisory Activities of the Emergencies Ministry also performed. According to him, for this period, in comparison with last year, the situation with fires in Russia is more complicated. At the moment, the area of ​​active combustion is 350 thousand hectares. As before, the most alarming situation with fires in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Yakutia and the Irkutsk region. Cheaply denied media information that the Ministry of Emergencies hides fires.

“We scan these data three times a day and give it to the regions. Why should we hide these lists? ”Says the representative of the Ministry of Emergencies. The cheap ones called the unacceptable situation when representatives of some public organizations extinguish fires “on television cameras”, not informing the firefighters about them.

The representative of Greenpeace Russia Grigory Kuksin assures that Muscovites may smell Gary at the end of June.

At the moment, environmentalists have recorded 64 foci of peat fires in the Central Federal District and in the Nizhny Novgorod Region. Greenpeace claims that the situation with fires in the Central Federal District is already quite complicated.