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Wildfires scorch 63,400 hectares of Russian forests

By Monday morning, 45,300 hectares were scorched by fires in the Amur Region, and 13,200 hectares, in the Khabarovsk Region

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. The area of the Russian forests scorched by fires has grown from 54,000 hectares to 63,400 hectares in one day. The Amur Region is seeing the most difficult fire situation, the Federal Forest Fire Center’s press service reported on Monday.

"By 00:00 Moscow time (07:00 Khabarovsk time), on June 4, 78 forest fires covering 63,420 hectares were active in Russia, and firefighting work was carried out there," the report says.

According to data received by the early hours of June 3, more than 54,000 hectares were aflame in the regional forests. The area scorched by fires has grown due to conflagrations in the Amur and Khabarovsk Regions: high, sometimes extremely high, fire danger level was forecasted there for the weekend. The area of fires which were being put out over the past day was 37,300 hectares and 5,300 hectares, correspondingly. By Monday morning, 45,300 hectares were scorched by fires in the Amur Region, and 13,200 hectares, in the Khabarovsk Region.

Blazes were also reported in the Trans-Baikal Region over 1,700 hectares, in the Tuva (700 hectares), Krasnoyarsk (530 hectares), Sakha (213 hectares), Buryatia (103 hectares), Sakhalin (64 hectares) Regions, as well as the Pskov, Irkutsk and Moscow Regions and the Jewish Autonomous Region. In some regions fires are active in nature reserves, in particular in the Amur, Buryatia and Primorsky Regions. More than 2,500 people, 430 quipment and 132 aircraft are involved in fire-fighting efforts; 170 smoke jumpers are also working in the Amur and Sakha Regions.