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Russian forest fires swell nearly 15% over past 24 hours — agency

The worst fires have been registered in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and the Magadan Region

© Yakutia Prosecutor-General's Office/TASS

VLADIVOSTOK, August 10. /TASS/. The area of blazes raging through Russia’s forests has increased by almost 15% over the past day to 215,600, the Aerial Forest Protection Service said on Wednesday.

As of Tuesday morning, there were 160 forest fires on an area of 188,787 hectares in the country. "In the past 24 hours on August 09, 2022, 53 forest fires on an area of 9,721 hectares were extinguished. As of 00:00 Moscow time on August 10, 2022, there were 151 forest fires on the territory of 215,626 ha in Russia which were actively put out," the report said.

The worst fires have been registered in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region (110,369 ha), the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) (68,058 ha), the Magadan Region (21,704 ha). Significant forest areas are covered by fire in the Komi Republic (8,415 ha) and the Yamalo-Nenets Region (3,110 ha).

The firefighting effort across the country involves 4,260 people, 377 pieces of equipment, 110 aircraft used for monitoring and 29 others for extinguishing. Fire season was declared in 83 Russian regions, special firefighting measures are in force in 59 regions. A state of emergency was declared in eight regions.

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