Over 500 Forest Fires Registered in Russia

Now that summer has not yet started in Russia, 563 forest fires are already raging in the country, 154 out of them have appeared over the past twenty-four hours.

As the RIA Novosti correspondent was told on Tuesday in the information department of the Emergencies Ministry of the Russian Federation, the greatest number of forest fires remains in the Russia's Far East - 190 fires have been registered in the Chita region. The number of forest fires in Buryatia amounts to 126 and in the Irkutsk Region - to 79.

The Chita Region leads in the number of big fires - 63, out of which 11 have appeared over the past twenty-four hours.

The total area of forests swept by fire in the past twenty-four hours amounts to more than 41,500 hectares.