Total area of forest fires exceeds 1 million hectares in Russia

Since the beginning of 2002 the total area of forest fires has exceeded 1 mln hectares in Russia.

Since the beginning of the season fraught with fires almost 645 thousand hectares of forest and over 359 thousand hectares of non-forest land of the state forest store were consumed by flames, Lev Krylov, head of the press service of the Natural Resources national agency, informed RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

21,764 fires were registered over the period. 14,174 fires within the area of about 430 thousand hectares were registered over the same period in the country.

Nearly 6,000 people, large amount of ground and aerial equipment were employed at fighting the fires.

76 fires were registered over the last 24 hours.