Russia is in fire

In many regions of Russia, due to high fire hazard, emergency mode has been introduced . Most fires are happening in Siberia: in the Irkutsk region, the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Transbaikalia. The main reason for forest fires was the heat - in Transbaikalia, for example, in recent days plus 36 degrees. To avoid the emergence of new foci of fires, special posts are displayed at the forests that do not let people go there. Experts forecasts for the summer are disappointing - there is a risk that this year can become one of the record in the scale of forest fires.

On operational reports The Aviales -Support, which are based on the data of regional dispatch services, as of July 1 in Russia, 179 forest fires were noted on an area of less than 64 thousand hectares, almost 80 fires per day were liquidated. According to Greenpeace experts, the official data on the scale of fires are seriously underestimated, and reporting on forest fires in Buryatia is now different from reality by about 11 times. Such a practice leads to the fact that forest fires react too late, and this increases their scale and damage that they cause.

The emergency regime in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Irkutsk region and in Transbaikalia was introduced due to abnormal heat and large area of forest fires. The authorities limited people's access to forests and the entry of transport.

The commander of the Baikal Volunteer Corps Andrei Borodin told Radio Liberty that three helicopters of the aviation fire department were involved in extinguishing forest fires in the region, a new inventory for extinguishing fires was sent to remote areas of Buryatia. However, the situation remains difficult:

- We now have abnormal heat, plus 36 degrees. The most important problem is 70 percent of fires from dry thunderstorms. Basically, these thunderous fronts take place in hard -to -reach places, as a rule, in a mountainous area. Therefore, in order to get to the focus of a fire, a long preparation is required, ”says Andrei. - We have such places, especially in the southern mountainous areas, where people should walk from the deployment site to the place of fire for 6-8 hours, and this is very difficult. Volunteers now mainly extinguish peat fires on the lands of the forest fund. Today, 47 fires are registered in Buryatia, of which 14 have already been eliminated. While the weather is working against firefighters and volunteers - thunderstorms, pressure changes and strong winds that inflate these all these fires interfere.

The head of the Greenpeace Forest Project in Russia , Alexei Yaroshenko, is sure that the situation with natural fires has already got out of control of the authorities-to introduce an emergency regime two weeks ago. In addition, the intentional underestimation of the scale of fires, in his opinion, also does not contribute to their effective extinguishing:

- Now the most alarming situation is in the Baikal region, ranging from the Irkutsk region to Transbaikal. And a rather bad situation is formed in Yakutia, although it is still better than it was a few years ago, when they rampant dry grass at the end of spring. Now it has become better with this, therefore it is better with fires, but in general the situation is very similar to last year, before last, and so on, ”says Alexey Yaroshenko.

According to him, some fundamental changes in how government agencies are fighting with fires has not occurred in recent years-at first the authorities hide their scale, and then, when they get out of control, they pretend that this is a natural element that is not amenable to control. The expert’s forecasts for this summer are disappointing - it all depends on weather conditions, but there is a risk that the year will turn out to be one of the record in the areas of forest fires.

For the head of the volunteer project, Greenpis Grigory Kuksin in the midst of summer is not only participation in extinguishing fires throughout Russia, but also the preparation of new volunteers. After a weekly training teacher, doctors, scientists are ready for voluntary assistance to firefighters, which, as Grigory says, is always in demand in Russia. First of all, volunteers go to extinguish fires to reserves and national parks. According to Gregory, this year among volunteers who want to become volunteers and help extinguish forest fires, many residents of Siberia, the Irkutsk region, Buryatia and the Trans -Baikal Territory - it is there that fires every year cause serious damage to nature:

- A separate big problem is the so -called "control zones". A few years ago, it was decided that in many territories we have no strength in the country to extinguish fires. And it was decided to legitimize this situation and give the regions the opportunity to refuse extinguishing if they have no money if it is inappropriate to direct people and equipment to extinguish fires in hard -to -reach places. Unfortunately, the regions abuse this right and, in fact, not only do not extinguish most fires in these control zones, but do not take them into account even. The foresters themselves call these fires "refuseniks" - they are not extinguished, they are not registered, and they develop uncontrollably. But sooner or later they reach settlements, or to specially protected natural territories, or to valuable economic forests and then become an unsolvable problem. Because if a fire comes to you, which has not been stewed for several weeks, it is no longer possible to put out it, because it is a huge area and there will not be enough strength for this. And this is now happening, in particular, in the Irkutsk region, ”says Grigory Kuksin .

The fact that Russia is not ready for the fire hazard season, Greenpeace experts warned in the spring when the first natural fires began in the Astrakhan region and Transbaikalia.

According to official figures, in July 2016, the area of forest and natural fires in Russia was more than a million hectares. The most difficult situation was in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Irkutsk Region and Buryatia. On July 1, 2016, in the Irkutsk region, during the extinguishing of fires, the Il-76 EMERCOM was disappeared, on board of which there were ten rescuers. Later, the wreckage of the aircraft was discovered four kilometers from the village of Rybnaya Uyan, all people who were on board died.

The most large -scale forest fires occurred in Russia in the summer of 2010. Due to abnormally hot weather and lack of precipitation throughout the territory, first the Central Federal District, and then in other regions of the country there was a complex fire situation. Peat fires in the suburbs were accompanied by the smell of Gary and strong smoking in Moscow and other cities.

In early August 2010, about 500 thousand hectares in 20 regions of Russia were covered by fires. Peat fires were recorded in the Moscow, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Tver, Kaluga and Pskov regions. The strongest fires were in the Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod regions and Mordovia, where a real disaster actually occurred. 53 people were killed in these fires, 1,200 houses, 127 settlements were destroyed by fire.