Forest fires are raging in the Sverdlovsk, Kurgan and Tyumen regions of Russia, threatening the local population.
On May 6, it was reported that due to forest fires, two powder warehouses exploded in the city of Pervomaisk, Sverdlovsk Region. Since then, the situation has deteriorated significantly, the evacuation of the population was started from the city.
The city of Asbest is also on fire, where fires were recorded on an area of 7.2 thousand hectares. There is no water supply and electricity in the settlement due to accidents at the power plant and Vodokanal facilities.
Smoke from the fires is also spreading to other settlements, including Yekaterinburg. Citizens are advised not to open windows, but to use a respirator on the street. The governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Evgeny Kuyvashev, recognized the situation as critical and turned to the federal center for help. Now forest fires in the region are being extinguished, including by volunteers from other regions.
The situation is similar in the Kurgan region. The city of Kurgan is in smoke, visibility is difficult in it. The highway to Tyumen is blocked, traffic is also stopped on several sections of the Irtysh highway. Several villages are being evacuated, and about 20 houses and a school are already on fire in the village of Uldus. Smoke from fires in the Sverdlovsk region also began to reach the region. It is reported that 700 people and 200 units of fire equipment are involved in extinguishing fires.
Residents of seven settlements in the Tyumen region are being evacuated in the Tyumen region. In the village of Rechkino and the village of Bogandinsky, houses and a sawmill burned down. A state of emergency has been introduced in the region. According to the governor of the region Alexander Moor, every day more and more new fires are recorded, while the situation is aggravated by dry and windy weather.
Every summer forests burn in Russia. For hard-to-reach forest fires in uninhabited territories, there is the concept of a “control zone”, outside of which they are not tried to be extinguished. In recent years, the state has been saying that they need to be reduced and allocates money for this. The Federal Forestry Agency reported on the successful implementation of the new standards in February, stating that the “control zones” were already “reduced as much as possible”.