The area of wildfires in Siberia enlarged by more than 1,000 hectares over the past 24 hours. There were 55 outbreaks on a total area of 2,556 ha on Saturday morning. Twelve of the fires have been localized on 415 ha. There is no threat of blaze spread to residential areas, the Russian Emergencies Ministry's regional centre told Itar-Tass. One conflagration is raging on 1,110 ha in the Krasnoyarsk Territory's Kezhem district. The most complicated situation is in this district and the Irkutsk Region. According to the EMERCOM information, 1,136 people with 195 machines are fighting the fires. Since most of the areas are in remote forest zones accessible only from the air, special helicopters airlift people and equipment to burning sites. Air forest guard forces carried out 22 flights over the past 24 hours to patrol the Siberian territories. On the ground, inspectors and foresters carried out 216 raids to detect cases of fire safety violations in forests. There are 779 mobile and fixed posts to bar accesses to the woods and monitor the situation, the EMERCOM press service reported. According to the Forestry Department in the Far East Federal District, the wildfire areas expanded to 3,670 ha in the Far East by Saturday morning, thrice more as compared to the last day. There are 25 fires in the region, and 17 of them in Yakutia, where 2,897 hectares of the forest and 527 ha of other areas are burning. The situation is complicated by the abnormal hot weather. Meteorologists forecast the temperature will rise up to 35 degrees Centigrade and higher in many areas of Yakutia. A state of emergency is declared in 19 municipal areas in the region. More than 400 people are mobilized to fight the fires in the republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and 50 machines are used in the work.
