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Nearly 70 wildfires extinguished in Russia over past day

The firefighting effort involves some 1,800 people, 343 pieces of equipment and 46 aircraft

© Kirill Shipitsyn/TASS

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. Firefighters have extinguished wildfires on a total area of nearly 11,000 hectares across Russia in the past day, the Aerial Forest Protection Service said on Thursday.

"According to regional forestry emergency services, over the past day of May 15, 2019 some 67 wildfires have been put out on the area of 11,048 hectares," the service said.

Some 35 wildfires are raging on the area of nearly 15,000 hectares, namely in the Transbaikal Region. Nearly 1,500 hectares of forest are on fire in Siberia’s Irkutsk Region and more than 900 hectares are ablaze in the Far East’s Khabarovsk Territory, including in nature reserves. Wildfires were also registered in Primorye, Yakutia, the Krasnoyarsk and Tyumen Regions and the Komi Republic.

The firefighting effort involves some 1,800 people, 343 pieces of equipment and 46 aircraft. Over the past 24 hours, three wildfires on the area of more than 16,300 hectares have been registered in hard-to-reach areas, mostly in Buryatia and also in Kamchatka.

The state of emergency over major fires has been declared across the entire Kurgan Region and the Transbaikal Region. A special firefighting effort has been underway in 46 Russian regions.

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