Emergencies' Ministry aviation to fight Yakutia’s forest fires

Aircraft of the Russian Emergencies’ Ministry will be used to fight raging forest fires in Yakutia.
This was announced today by deputy head of the government of Yakutia Anatoly Skrybykin at a meeting of the working group of the Government Commission on Prevention and Relief of Emergency Situations, chaired by the head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations Vladimir Puchkov.

According Skrybykin, an amphibious Be-200 aircraft and MI-26 helicopter are already in Yakutsk. "We hope that they will improve the situation," he said.

Yakutia is already in the grips of the forest fire season, with a tendency to the blazes spreading due to high temperatures.
This year, the territory has already registered 89 forest fires on the total area of over 5,000 hectares.

"Over the same period of last year there were only 36 fires, but this year the climatic conditions were different - spring floods occurred in April 10 days earlier than customary”, said the official.

Currently, 20 forest fires are raging in Yakutia, nine of them have been contained.