350 forest fires in Russia

350 active forest fires were registered in Russia yesterday, 81 forest fires flamed up on Monday. Another 158 forest fires were eliminated by workers of state forest service on the day of their discovery. According to the data of the Air Forest Protection /Avialesokhrana/ in the last 24 hours the fire has covered 31,000 hectares, head of the "Prirodnye Resursy" /Natural Resources/ agency Lev Krylov said.

4,618 people, 57 units of aerotechnics and 854 units of ground machinery are engaged in the elimination of the fires. Extra forces of the state forest service firefighters are summoned to the most aggrieved regions.

The situation around the forest fires is expected to worsen in Siberia, due to the dry and windy weather with the temperature of 27-30 degrees.

Eight small forest fires were registered in the Central region, and 19 - in the Urals. The fires that flamed up on Monday in other regions have been extinguished.

Since the beginning of the hot season in Russia, 9,407 forest fires, consuming an area of more than 357,000 hectares, have been detected. It is twice as much as in last year's respective period.