YAKUTSK, December 15. /TASS/. Head of Yakutia Aysen Nikolayev set the task of preparing a unified response to wildfires during his address to the State Assembly (Il Tumen) on Wednesday.
"Now, we need to ensure a unified response of all forest firefighting services to the challenges of the natural elements. In 2022, the forest protection funding the republic receives from the federal budget will increase 5.5 times to 1.619 billion rubles. This will increase the frequency of aerial forest patrols three times, and ground patrols by eight times. The number of parachute firemen will almost double to 405 people," said Nikolaev.
According to the republic’s head, this year, fires have threatened 46 settlements in 16 districts of Yakutia. He noted that Yakutia deployed the largest group of forces in the history of fighting forest fires, with over 26.1 thousand people involved in fighting wildfires. "Among them were the wildland firefighters from 19 regions of the country, rescuers of the Ministry of Emergency Situation, military engineering troops. There were 52 aircrafts sent by the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, the Defense Ministry and Yakut airlines. Residents of the republic went up to extinguish the fires," Nikolayev said.
During the message, Nikolayev touched on the topic of reforestation. "This problem has not been solved in any way for decades, and our forests have always recovered naturally after fires. I ask people's deputies to take legislative action in support of reforestation and, in general, of minimizing environmental damage from wildfires. This includes the second reading of the draft Environmental Code, which you adopted yesterday in the first reading. I ask our deputies of the State Duma and members of the Federation Council to raise this issue at the level of federal legislation," he said. The work to restore aviation units for forest protection in the region will continue.
In addition, there are plans to create a project office which will control the construction of carbon landfills in the region. "To prevent damage caused by fires, we must implement projects with a long-term effect. In this regard, it is necessary to create a carbon polygon on the territory of Yakutia to monitor the carbon balance on the basis of digital technology. We also need to form a network of forest carbon farms to absorb harmful emissions in the air by trees," Nikolayev said.
Yakutia is one of the most fire-hazardous regions of Russia. The state of emergency was introduced in the region on June 23 due to difficult fire hazardous situation. This summer, Yakutia experienced abnormally hot and dry weather, the air was heated to +33 degrees Celsius. According to the Yakutia Prosecutor's Office, the damage caused by forest fires in the republic exceeded 3.7 billion rubles in 2021.